


In Ash

by Cerrone



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-01-22 21:19:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21308767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerrone/pseuds/Cerrone
Summary: Unable to locate the last of the Horcruxes, Hermione is sent back in time to find Salazar Slytherin's locket.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Comments: 90
Kudos: 415
Collections: Time Travel Bellamione





	1. The Battle of Hogwarts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miranda1992](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miranda1992/gifts).

> Hello everyone, I hope you enjoy this new story of mine. If you feel like it please leave me a comment letting me know what you think so far! <3

Voldemort reigned down on them. Crushing. Suffocating. Undefeated. Hermione’s lungs filled with the bitter choke of guilt. Her head lay against the all too familiar cobblestones, heavy limbs like iron aching from the cold. She could feel the vibrations traveling to her through the earth from the collapsing castle. That terrible heartbeat. The sound of her only home crumbling. Dying. Ragged breaths mingled with the taste of blood spilled out of her lips. Those terrible flames of destruction flickered against the plumes of smoke rising out of Hogwarts. Students stood and fought against the Death Eaters who moved with the ease of shadows into the building. There was no stopping it all now. It was all useless. The months of searching. The years of fighting. The lifetime of anguish. Useless. The cries of joy and anguish alike mingled in the thick, dusty air. To identify each voice sickened her. Ron’s guttural scream coming from somewhere inside, she had lost sight of him hours ago. Hermione could hear the telltale screech of Bellatrix Lestrange somewhere too. The twisted call echoing off the broken stones of Hogwarts.  
  
They had searched, Harry, Ron, and herself. They had searched every pit and every fetid dwelling of Death Eaters past. Hermione desperately followed any whisper of the locket in her books. She had classified and documented and investigated all pure blood family wills, dedications, everything. And all of it a dead end. There were times she wondered if the locket had ever existed at all, it made her doubt. She found herself wondering more often than she would ever have admitted whether it was all an elaborate trap set up by Voldemort in years past. To lure them all to this exact moment. This terrible moment of destruction.  
  
Flashes of red and green lit up the courtyard of Hogwarts with ruthless speed. The crack of magic echoed in her ears and made her skin prickle, as if all her nerve endings recalled her night spent with Bellatrix Lestrange. She remembered how those curses felt crawling through her like a hungry creature in desperate want of blood. Hermione saw the neon sprays of colour and light land all around her. Colliding with bodies - some cloaked in black, and some cloaked in the sickeningly familiar Hogwarts uniform. The students of Hogwarts were as essential and vital to her as every brick of that magnificent castle. Hermione felt like she had died with them. And as she watched every stone and brick, and every student, teacher, and friend fall she died, and died again.  
  
The Death Eaters had descended on Hogwarts as a giant ashen wave. As if weathering some unseen and massive storm the castle quaked. Trembled. All of the brilliant gossamer windows broke in unison. It was the loudest thing she had ever heard. And then came the terrible howling of wind through the halls, and Voldemort in the courtyard - screaming for Harry. Before her eyes slipped closed like an iron gate to the world Hermione saw Harry’s limp body collapse to the ground. His blank eyes staring out at the darkening sky.  
  
\---  
  
Hermione became slowly aware she had changed position. Lying on her back now, rather than her stomach. Her limbs nestled gently against some unseen comfort. Like some sickening tide it all came back to her. No chance at the luxury of amnesia. The screams. The fire. Hogwarts. Ron. Harry. Voldemort. Hermione was certain she had died, or was about to die, where she had laid. But she had moved, or had been moved, which is something the dead would not notice. She wondered who was left. And who had gone. Her heart sunk in her chest like all her veins were made of ice cold metal. Hermione could feel her eyelids closed firmly over her eyes and couldn’t bare to open them. It would all become real. And she couldn’t face it. She couldn’t look into Ron’s eyes knowing that Harry had died to Voldemort’s curses. And she couldn’t look into Molly’s eyes if Ron had perished too. The life she knew had perished. Been obliterated. Crushed under the falling stones of Hogwarts. She felt like a hollow shell. Much like how the castle must be now, she thought. No warmth of life within its walls. No, now they both knew only destruction and death. What a terrible curse it must have been for Harry to outlive his parents through such violence. Sorrow overcame her then. What a terrible curse it must be, to outlive all your friends. Hermione slung an arm over her closed eyes, nestling into the crook of her elbow. If she didn’t open her eyes then none of it would be real. A heart can be broken but go on beating just the same. She wished hers would stop.  
  
The call came to her. To get up. To keep going. Someone who cared about her had brought her back here, laid her down and let her rest. They had cared enough to save her. If she had been captured by Voldemort and his forces she would know it by now. Awoken with curses, no doubt. Beaten, shunned, and ridiculed most definitely. But she hadn’t, and so she wasn’t and maybe there was a speck of hope after all. Hermione slung her arms by her sides and slowly opened her eyes. Brilliant white light poured into her eyes and made her squint. It felt like she hadn’t seen the sun in years. The gentle blur of colours across her vision slowly came into focus and made Hermione furrow her eyebrows. As if untouched on the day she left for Hogwarts her room, her old room, unpacked itself in front of her eyes. Every detail the same, every colour, every texture. She sat up and found herself sitting on her bed. The same bed she had slept in as a child - her feet dangling over the edge now. She had grown a lot since being here. Behind the curtains came floods of white light, illuminating every surface. It was almost too bright, Hermione wondered how long she had been out. Looking down over herself she noted that her clothes were the same as the ones she had worn at the battle, only without any damage. And thankfully without any blood. She studied her hands and saw the dirt and ash from under her nails was gone too. All traces of brutality washed away, and a healing, dreamless sleep. For that she was grateful.

Hermione stepped carefully across her bedroom floor, recalling all the spots that made the floorboards squeak under her carpet. She wanted to see, first. To know, first - who was left. Who made it out. Gently she padded on bare feet towards the landing of the stairs, marvelling at how her house hadn’t changed at all. Things she had forgotten stepped out at her now. A chip on the corner of a picture frame, a mark on the wall. All fresh now. All mundanely apparent. She had sworn to remember everything about her parents, about the complex map of wrinkles on their faces, to remember every detail of her home. But she had forgotten some. A jolt of guilt crept across her shoulders as she paused to take a breath. Hermione wasn’t sure who she was expecting to see sitting on her living room sofa, in just the same spot her parents had been when the Obliviate settled on them. It seemed an unnatural marriage of worlds to her. She always felt like two different Hermiones, divided into who she was before and after that fateful letter had fluttered through the mail slot. But here, now, they had been smashed together and it made her feel faint. As the sofa came into view Hermione’s mind took a moment to identify the two individuals in her living room.   
  
Remus.  
  
And Tonks.  
  
Hermione’s heart stopped for a moment before hammering in her ears. Like the answer to a riddle she couldn’t forget it was now swimming around in her head, unstoppable. _Dead. Dead. Dead. _She hadn’t survived after all. And neither had Lupin, and neither had Tonks. She had seen their lifeless bodies slumped against each other while defending Hogwarts. The castle was lost. The final stand in the courtyard lost, too. This was the place that changed it all. Her home. The moment before her letter arrived. Irrevocable, but here it stood still, and silent, and blindingly bright.  
  
“Remus, Tonks?” Hermione’s voice came as meerley a whisper, though she wished it had been more.  
  
She watched as Remus’ head slowly turned to her, though he did not make eye contact he began to speak in a low, monotone voice she had never heard him use. “Hermione. I’m glad you’re awake.”  
  
She walked gently around to the front of the sofa, and sat in the armchair opposite Remus and Tonks. Hermione noticed that Tonks hadn’t moved or looked at her. She simply sat with her hands clasped on her lap, looking at the floor with tears rolling down her cheeks. Remus held her gaze but made no expression. He watched her, interested, and maybe with a hint of concern. It was as if he had a great conflict internally, perhaps struggling to come to terms with his own death. _Death. _The word made her feel sick.  
  
“Where are Harry, and Ron?” It was all she could think to ask. Hermione was sure they must be dead too. And if they were dead, why weren’t they here.  
  
“They are both elsewhere. This moment is for you, and you alone.” Remus’ voice echoed around the small room, overlapping itself and becoming distorted. He continued, Hermione was not sure if he could hear what was happening to his voice, or if it was in her head. “It is over. I’m sure you know. But you have a chance. You can go back. Fix it all. There is a prophecy - powerful magic. You have a choice. Like us all. Leave here. Fix it. Or return to sleep - rest eternal.”  
  
Hermione listened through the echo to Remus’ conference. She watched his mouth move and articulate around the words. Her head spun and she gripped the arm of her chair tightly to remain focused. She heard her breath become ragged. “Prophecy?”  
  
Hermione’s eyes flickered between Remus and Tonks as he spoke. Tonks was unnervingly still. Clasping her hands on her lap, still. Tears coming freely from her eyes, still. As if the trauma of her final moment at Hogwarts had carried on with her. Reliving it over and over in her head. Perhaps she was thinking of Teddy. Perhaps she was thinking of it all. “Yes. You can go back, or you can rest. Everyone will know who you are. Like you never left.”  
  
“I can fix it all? Save everyone?” Hermione felt she misheard him. How could she save them all now? How could she go back from this place? From being dead? Her head swum in thick heat, trying to make sense of it all. Trying desperately to focus on Remus.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Hermione knew immediately she had to try. She had to. Harry would do the same. Ron would, without question. They were Gryffindors and they were brave. It was up to her to save them. To bring them back. “Then I will.”  
  
As soon as she uttered the words her vision began to swirl and flicker at the edges. She felt hot. Cold. Her ears began to ring and Hermione could feel herself slipping. She leaned back in her mother’s favourite armchair and took some deep breaths. Trying to ground herself. Trying not to spin off into unconsciousness. She heard Remus speaking again and strained her ears to hear.

_ “Hidden in Darkness as the light dies. _ _  
_ _ Great warrior fallen, where fates collide. _ _  
_ _ On the eve of the first hides the half-blood prize. _   
_And in their union will death be denied.”_

Hermione was aware vaguely of more being said, but couldn’t decipher it. Couldn’t manage to hear it over the roar of blood coursing through her ears. She slammed her eyes shut and felt a sickening twist. 

Beneath her head she felt cool, hard stone. She felt her elbows and knees resting uncomfortably on the uneven surface. Hermione heard the sound of gentle, curious voices and opened her eyes to a small crowd of unfamiliar students clustered around her. Past their craning heads Hermione could see that behind them Hogwarts rose out of the ground strong, and reborn. Like a phoenix from the ashes both she and the castle were back from the dead. Risen to heal. And risen to overcome.

  
  
  
  
  



	2. Supper

“Are you alright, Hermione?” A round-faced Ravenclaw boy stooped down to her with a concerned look on his face. Hermione, having never seen this boy before in her life, watched confused at the hands clasped on the boy’s knees for support. Her head was still spinning, and still not quite sure, really, what had just happened. She was sent…  _ somewhere _ . At least she hoped that was the case. Hermione could only imagine what Ron would have to say if he found out her own personal afterlife was the usual day-in, day-out at Hogwarts. Remembering his name made her heart tense and sink. Like a very heavy, very foreign object nestled between her lungs she couldn’t get rid of. Her house. Remus. It was all swimming back to her like a high tide rolling in. He said she could go back and fix everything, but Hermione wasn’t entirely sure what  _ back _ he was referring to. Back to Hogwarts? Back to first year? Back further? As if caught in a violent and tremendous storm Hermione’s mind thrashed and circled, her eyes wandering unconsciously over the unfamiliar features of the boy in front of her, who was looking increasingly concerned.   
  
“Hermione?” He asked again. “You alright?” Hermione realised how long she must have been sitting, staring, and going over what happened in her mind. 

“Oh, yes. I was just..” She frantically scanned around for something to comment on, or think of some reason why she was sitting where she was, and why. Even if she didn’t entirely know that herself. Rising to her feet with more effort than she was used to exerting the boy spoke again. 

“Are you coming to Divination?” He asked, merrily. Standing upright for the first time Hermione could see he was much taller than he looked stooped over, and that he must have been in 6th or 7th year. She looked over his features again, likening them to Harry and Ron’s. She remembered how quickly they seemed to turn into young men - totally different from the boys she met in first year. In appearance at least. “We’ve still got 15 minutes to class, but I thought I’d get a headstart on the stairs. Want to come too?” 

15 minutes. Perfect. “Actually, I’ve got some things I need to take care of first. I’ll meet you up there!” She tried her best to seem normal. Normal at least for whatever this was. Divination would have to wait today. Hermione, for one, had no idea where or even when she was. She knew, at least, that she was still herself in some capacity - that boy had asked her to go to class early with him, and he had also called her by name.  _ They will know who you are _ . She heard again the echo from Remus.    
  
“Alright, Hermione! See you later!” The boy walked past her and went on his way to class. Eagerly Hermione walked in the direction of the nearest bathroom.    
  
Hermione glanced casually at anyone she walked past. Everyone she saw was unfamiliar. She wondered if this was some alternate universe where nobody she had known before existed. The Hogwarts uniform was familiar. The four house colours she knew so well were a welcome sight. As if automatically she followed through the halls and corridors towards the bathroom. Towards her small sanctuary. A space to think. To at least get everything in order. Hermione looked down at her clothes and sighed to see her old Gryffindor red tie in it’s rightful place. So many things around her had changed. But her tie was the same. She pushed open the heavy wood door and made her way into a cubicle. Closing the door behind her she began to pace back and forth in the small private space made available to her. Hermione closed her eyes and focused on Remus’ words. In minute fragments she recalled what he said. The fragments became pieces, and the pieces became sentences.  _ A prophecy.  _ Hermione knew the exact words of prophecies were exceptionally important. She had to focus hard, running over the lines in her head. As if by reflex she reached down and took her wand out of her pocket. A wave of calm washed through her when she realised what the thin piece of wood in her hand was. The grip she had executed a thousand times. Ten and three quarters, vine wood, dragon heartstring. Hermione waved her wand in the air and summoned a small notebook and quill and wrote down what she knew so far. She always found it help to make lists. 

_ My name is Hermione _

_ I am in Gryffindor _

_ … _

Here she paused. Her quill hovered expectantly over the paper. Unsure of what else was guaranteed fact, and what was from  _ before _ . She still had no idea what year she was in, what year it was, and how she was supposed to fix everything that was going to happen. Hermione furrowed her brow and concentrated again.

_ Hidden in Darkness as the light dies. _ _   
_ _ Great warrior fallen, where fates collide. _

_ On the eve of the first hides the half-blood prize. _ _   
_ _ And in their union will death be denied. _

Line by line Hermione scanned slowly through the words. Circling. Annotating. Thinking. Attributing. After a few minutes she had half a page of notes on the verse.  _ Hidden in Darkness as the light dies _ must refer to herself, she thought. Hidden here, wherever here was, as Hogwarts was lost. It couldn’t have meant that bright place with Remus and Tonks. The image of her friend paralysed in sorrow on her childhood sofa pained her deeply. Hermione was doing this for everyone. For all of her friends. For all of her allies. For every would-be or has-been victim of Voldemort.  _ Great warrior fallen _ must be Harry, she thought, recalling his lifeless and limp body. Hermione tapped the back of her quill against her lips in thought. She didn’t quite get  _ On the eve of the first.  _ It was talking about a timeline, something to help place her now or maybe to indicate when she would need to start taking action to prevent that hideous future.  _ The half-blood prize _ she knew immediately. The Horcrux. It was Salazar Slytherin’s locket, but he was a pure-blood. The only half-blood who would consider the locket a prize would be Voldemort. The prophecy confirmed what Hermione had suspected during the time Harry, Ron, and herself were searching for the locket. It was hidden. And hidden well. She furrowed her brow. Perhaps  _ Hidden in Darkness _ was about the hidden locket, and not herself? The last line of the prophecy made perfect sense to her. Bring all the horcruxes together, destroy them, and nobody dies. Well, nobody except Voldemort.    
  
Satisfied with her efforts for now, Hermione, feeling slightly more grounded, waved her wand again to conceal her notebook and left the bathroom. It seemed she already had a place in this new version of Hogwarts, and she had better try to fit in. Remus hadn’t said anything about others looking for her here, but after months and months of being on the run it was second nature to always be on the lookout. To always keep escape routes in mind. To always obscure oneself from danger. To carry out her normal Hogwarts routine, at this stage, would be perfect camouflage. 

Hermione made it to the North Tower just as the classroom door opened to reveal a completely unfamiliar professor waiting to greet them. This person, who was neither particularly masculine or particularly feminine, looked to Hermione exactly as a Divination professor should. It was refreshing, in a way. Professor Trelawney had never really sparked her interest for Divination, but now to see someone of her academic kin was bitterly nostalgic. Hermione didn’t know what had happened to her in the battle, and for that she was grateful. The all too still images of her dead friends and comrades floated up from between her thoughts like a drowned mouse in her cereal. She was glad to not have Professor Trelawney’s body floating in there too. 

The Divination classroom smelled mostly as she remembered. Spires of blue smoke from incense climbed through the air and mingled with the scent of too many types of tea. The thick, heady aroma made her feel dizzy, and if she thought too much about how strange it felt not to have Harry or Ron with her she felt even worse. She sat next to the friendly Ravenclaw boy from the courtyard, taking notice of how he spoke of other students and assignments he was working on like they had spoken about them before together. She was thankful to have been sent here not completely alone. Whoever was responsible for it. The rest of the class shuffled into the room in groups of three or four. All friendly faces who seemed to regard her on their way past with a gentle nod or a wave. Hermione wondered if she was more well-liked here than her Hogwarts. The attention usually went to Harry, which she never had a problem with because it gave her more time to study, but now it felt strange to be acknowledged by so many of her peers. Towards the end of the lesson the boy sitting next to Hermione raised his hand to ask a question, and so she had learned his name. Theodore. He seemed nice enough. The Divination professor had also given away another key piece of information - the class was preparing for their N.E.W.T.s. Which meant it was their 7th year. Which also meant she was roughly the same age as when she fell in the battle. The climate outside was slightly too warm, and the fields surrounding the castle were lush and verdant. Hermione estimated it must have been just after summer. The trees hadn’t yet begun to turn. She sighed a gentle breath of relief. It was an idyllic moment at Hogwarts stopped in time. If only Harry and Ron were here it would be perfect. 7th year as it should have been. 

As class finished Hermione and all the other students flowed down the stairs of the North Tower. She looked around at her cohort and recognised none of the faces, though they all knew who she was. It had been the last class of the day, dinner soon and then free time in the common room. Truthfully she was looking forward to a hot supper. To sit down in front of that much food would be an exceptional rarity back in her 7th year, most of it spent hiding from snatchers and listening to Potterwatch. Some nights Lee Jordan’s voice would still find her in her dreams. She remembered then Bellatrix Lestrange walking down the Gryffindor table kicking away at silverware, candles, everything. It seemed so callous and vile, and showed only Bellatrix’s contempt for Hogwarts. Hermione couldn’t imagine ever feeling that way about this beloved castle and all the wonders inside of it. 

Some time later, Hermione found herself sitting in the Great Hall enjoying a delicious plate of food. The Hogwarts house elves had cooked up roast lamb with vegetables, gravy, and perhaps the tastiest bread Hermione had ever had the pleasure of stuffing into her mouth fistfuls at a time. She had desperately missed this. Sitting amongst her peers eating, talking about the day, discussing who was going to play against who in Wizard’s Chess. Hermione sat with full attention directed at her plate. Around her she was aware of a few fellow students coming and going as they finished eating, and even exchanged a pleasant wave with Theodore when their eyes happened to meet across the tables. It was nourishing, more nourishing than her warm plate of food, to soak in the old feelings of Hogwarts she had come to love so deeply. She could feel it all reviving her. Bringing her back to life from certain cold, painful death out in the courtyard at Voldemort’s hand. Content at the sight of her empty plate, and needing to take a breather after eating what was probably too much food, Hermione leaned back and let her eyes more freely graze over the Great Hall, and everyone in it. She looked to the professor’s table and smiled when she saw a much younger Dumbledore sitting in his usual chair as the Headmaster of Hogwarts. She had gone back some years then, it seemed, not enough that Dumbledore wasn’t Headmaster, and not so little that there was indistinguishable change in his appearance. Similarly, Hermione was glad to find that there was no cluster of Marauders seated at the Gryffindor table. To have Sirius and James in every one of her classes would have complicated things to say the least. Hermione supposed it must have been 30 or so years she was sent back. She made a mental note to jot down later. If she could start estimating dates then she could work out where things were up to on the Voldemort timeline. Here she sighed to herself, perhaps it was better that she had been sent back in place of Harry or Ron. They were very good fighters and would make brilliant aurors one day, after she found that locket, but they just didn’t have the same deep and unending passion for facts and dates like she did.    
  
Hermione looked around the Great Hall a final time, soaking in the ambience she had missed so much. Breathing it in deep like a lung full of oxygen as if moments away from drowning. But Hermione’s breath caught in her throat then for a different reason. Across the hall seated at the Slytherin table, she hadn’t noticed before, was a witch who must have been around her age who was exceptionally and terribly familiar. Sickeningly so. Belatrix Lestrange. The telltale gnaw of Azkaban absent from her youthful cheeks, but the same intensely dark eyes and the same look of disinterest. Her heart thundered in her chest and the patch of skin on her arm known most closely to Bellatrix burned. She had the scar removed magically - she couldn’t bear to look at it - but the pervasive burn still lingered. Quickly, and with flushed cheeks, Hermione stood and left the Great Hall making sure to not make eye contact with the apparent stranger. That creature. That snake. Lurking in the shadows of her salvation. 

  
  



	3. The Common Room

Hermione held tightly onto the railing of the Grand Staircase as it elevated her to the next landing. She was on her way to the common room, the only place she could take refuge from Bellatrix. Though, at this particular moment in time Bellatrix had no idea who she was, she hoped. The portraits of witches and wizards past hung on the walls like scales and Hermione marvelled at how much they had changed over the years. There were, like everywhere else in this Hogwarts, several unfamiliar faces scattered amongst the portraits she knew well. But now wasn’t the time to carefully identify who was new and who was old. As the massive stone flight of stairs ground against their destination landing Hermione stepped off and made her way towards the portrait of the Fat Lady. She didn’t know the password but Hermione hoped that, like everyone else, the Fat Lady would know her too. Breath heaved in and out of her lungs as she scrambled up the last flight of stairs, higher and higher away from the dungeon-dwelling Bellatrix, her hidden scar burning with every beat of her heart. The strong muscle recalling the scorching touch and malevolent crawl of the Cruciatus Curse. 

As soon as she approached the Fat Lady greeted her merrily, “Hermione, dear! Welcome back.” With a pleased smile and a gentle nod of her head the portrait swung open. Hermione released the breath she didn’t realise she was holding and made her way into definite safety. Feeling hidden and secure, like a rabbit in it’s warren, when she heard the portrait latch shut behind her. 

Bellatrix Fucking Lestrange. 

Hermione sighed and walked into the common room with heavy feet. In a different moment she would feel comforted by it’s familiar scent and goings on. The gentle noise of fellow Gryffindors at rest rolling over the dark wooden floors, and the sight of that well-known hearth. She had spent many nights in front of it’s crackling maw studying. But all that in a different moment. In this moment, now, she could think of only one thing. Like an inkblot soaking her world in darkness. Like those inky depths that had stared at her with an unyielding rage in the Malfoy Manor. The endless and terrifying abyss that was Bellatrix Lestrange, and she had been only a short distance away this whole time. It made Hermione’s skin crawl. She walked into the 7th year dormitories and immediately recognised which was hers. As if preserved perfectly from her last year at Hogwarts she found her bed exactly as she left it. No book or piece out of place on her trunk. Hermione hurried over to the bed, slipping off her shoes before sitting on the maroon bedspread. With a flick of her wand the velvet curtains surrounding her bed on all sides slid closed, granting her complete privacy. She sat for a moment with her hands pressed firmly against her eyes, seeing jets of colour churn behind her vision. Unbelievable. Terrible. Vile. 

Hermione conjured her notebook and flipped it open. She wrote down that name which made her shiver almost as much as Voldemort’s, but hesitated a moment before scrawling Lestrange. It wasn’t Lestrange. It was Black. Sister of Narcissa, and Andromeda. Hermione had never spoken to Tonks at length about her mother's desertion, she wondered whether it had already happened, or if the seeds of contempt with Toujours Pur had already begun to grow and entangle her. Hermione recalled the shrieking portrait of Druella Black in Grimmauld Place and cringed when she imagined what life must have been like at home for the three Black daughters. Narcissa seemed normal enough, never taking up the Death Eater mantle for herself, and devoting her every waking moment to Draco. Andromeda Hermione hadn’t met, but maybe she would if she was able to solve the prophecy and find the locket. Destroy Voldemort once and for all. Bellatrix, the oldest sister, must have taken the most of her family’s rage and violence. Adhering strictly to the values they held. Adhering strictly to the values of her Dark Lord. The turmoil ate at her from the inside. Left her rotten, and sadistic. An ornate shell of a woman driven to complete madness by her family, her blood, her Lord. And all of it cycled endlessly with every Dementor’s kiss. Never allowed to heal. Those festering wounds opened, and opened again. 

Hermione drew a line under Black. A thought came to her instantly. Quickly she flipped back to the page where she had the prophecy written. She worried her tongue against her teeth and stared down at the verse. Hermione desperately hoped, for once in her life, that she wasn’t correct. But the revelation was relentless. She had a deep feeling in her gut, a sick, anxious feeling. She knew. Hovering her quill over the page she tenderly, as if too much pressure might crush her world, underlined the word Darkness. 

Bellatrix Fucking Black. 

The locket was supposed to be in Grimmauld Place, lost by Kreacher - he didn’t know where it was now. He mentioned Mundungus Fletcher. He howled the name. But the lead never went anywhere. Dead. But now it seemed to Hermione that the locket might be there anyway. Secreted away in another timeline. That tiny piece of Voldemort’s soul. That withered creature. She wondered how he had hidden it here. It was powerful magic that sent her back this far. Hidden in Darkness, she supposed, meant the locket was either hidden with Bellatrix, or hidden at Grimmauld Place. Both of these possibilities were as bad as each other. Hermione imagined that a young Bellatrix given a chance to prove herself would fight like a caged and threatened beast. Voldemort charging her personally with the protection of a piece of his wretched soul. If the locket were at Grimmauld Place instead, well, Hermione would have to plan the mother of all heists to get it back. Druella’s portrait had been a hideous and screeching monstrosity. She shivered thinking of meeting the woman herself. Hermione considered, for a brief and fleeting moment, making another Polyjuice Potion to transform herself into Bellatrix, but she would be found out in seconds. Voldemort was alive and well, somewhere in this manifested past, and his followers would do well to keep their homes secure. To keep their wards up. To keep the enemy out. 

Hermione sat back in her bed and rested her head against the wall. A gentle breeze swept through the dormitory bringing with it the smell of evening grass and the hum of a chorus of crickets. She closed her eyes and listened, taking deep and measured breaths. It was a plan Hermione wasn’t brave enough to articulate. It was the kind of thing that she would usually talk Harry and Ron out of doing. But it was her only option. Her stomach sank low into her abdomen and tears welled behind her closed eyes. The three of them had tried everything, been everywhere, fought against everything. She had been fighting since the day she arrived at Hogwarts. Fighting to be seen as worthy. Fighting to be something more than a muggle-born witch to her peers. Hermione, Ron, and Harry had left everything they had left on the battlefield, including their lives. It was this last and final hurdle towards victory. And this last and final hurdle which was the most monumental of all. Doubt crept through her mind at every synapse. Like a shadow it stretched out, unending and unwavering, claiming her thoughts. 

What if she couldn’t do what needed to be done?

Hermione recalled, as if it was ever far enough away from her mind that she had to conjure it anew, the battle. The smell of the air thick with dust and ash from the crumbling castle. The metallic call of blood came to her every so often, the scent of it unmistakable. She recalled the spellfire which knocked her down - which killed her. It burned so deep within her she felt as if the skin of her back was completely gone, and her vulnerable ribs were exposed to the air. No doubt, by now, spackled with dirt in areas it should never have been. She recalled Harry. That terrible sight. His all too pale skin, and his eyes open and unfocused. So many had died. And she along with them. She was their last hope. Their last light against the suffocating tide of Voldemort. 

Hermione knew what she had to do, and that there was no alternative. No shortcut, no plan B. Dumbledore’s Army, the Aurors, she was it. If the locket was hidden with Bellatrix she would get it. If it was hidden in the house of Black, she would get it there too. She wasn’t as brave in battle, perhaps, as Harry and Ron. Even as an 11 year old Ron had sacrificed himself in a game of Wizard’s Chess so Harry could continue on. But Hermione knew that she was smart, and cunning. And she would look Bellatrix Black in the face befriend her. Be her newest and most faithful companion. The sort that gets invited over for family dinners and is allowed to venture off to the bathroom unsupervised. The friendship of Bellatrix Black would be her invisibility cloak. Hermione knew an exceptional amount about her already. What she likes, dislikes. Her future husband’s name, and even her favourite bloody spell. Here Hermione shivered, remembering again the curses that found her body.

She opened her eyes as tears rolled down her cheeks. She was terrified of that beast. That tormented, warped creature. Hermione hoped that this Bellatrix was more predictable than the one she knew, and knew too well. Perhaps the heavy crush of Azkaban weighed on the witch more than she let on. Perhaps her tumble to insanity was quick. Perhaps this one would be alright. Tolerable, even. Hermione’s thin resolve wavered. She could feel the veil of her own convincing fail her. But it was all she had, and so it had to work.


	4. Charms Class

Hermione awoke the next morning wishing it had all been a bad dream. Wishing she could have woken up in the company of Harry and Ron out in some non-frequented woodland. It would have been a welcome sight for her, waking up in the Gryffindor dormitory. It should have been a welcome sight, but it wasn’t. When she had spent all those months and months camping, on the run from Snatchers and Death Eaters alike, Hermione had dreamed of this. Her limbs positively aching to rest on the dark oak frame. One structure to support another. One night’s rest away from it all. She used to linger on remembering all the details she had forgotten. The way the quilt puckered awkwardly around the base of the uprights. The way the morning sun seeped through the fabric of the curtains like honey through gauze. But this wasn’t what she wanted. This was a gruelling, desperate act to defeat Voldemort. Not free from the campsite but bidden to descend even further into enemy territory. To befriend Bellatrix Lestrange. To gaze into the eyes of a snake. Hermione sighed and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. If she thought for too long about how her life had been turned inside out made her feel dizzy, and sick. 

She made her way down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Pumpkin juice and a few slices of toast. Hermione glanced over toward the Slytherin table, looking for that telltale plume of black hair. She found it difficult to imagine Bellatrix young, and without that indelible mark of Voldemort on her forearm. Hermione tried to recall again what the girl she had seen yesterday looked like, but could only conjure an image of modern day Bellatrix in a Hogwarts uniform. Picking at the last crumbs on her plate, and swallowing the last of her juice Hermione scanned the Hall. It seemed Bellatrix wasn’t much of a breakfast person, classes would start within the hour and she was nowhere to be seen. She sighed and pressed herself up from the wooden table. She wasn’t entirely sure what her plan was, but she would have no plan at all if she couldn’t actually find Bellatrix. With her mind on her next class, which she had found out would be Charms, Hermione left the hall and headed back to the dormitory. Her mind wandered, as it was in want of doing more often than not lately, and she found herself walking without really looking where she was going. The gentle ebb and flow of students made their way around her, she heard in passing a few stray words from their conversations. Mostly people were talking about their homework for the week, their favourite class today, or their least favourite. The same sorts of things Harry, Ron, and herself had spoken about between trying to destroy Voldemort. Hermione rounded a corner and collided chest first into a fellow student. Their house impossible to distinguish in the blur and tangle of limbs that ensued. Out of habit, a hard learned habit, Hermione drew her wand on the way down and held it out defensively, ready to disarm her opponent before she could see who they were. 

“Oof. Watch where you’re going, Granger!” 

“Sorry. I-uh..” Hermione’s eyes widened and her jaw locked when she saw who it was she ran into. 

Bellatrix. 

Hermione watched wordlessly as the witch got to her feet. They were wearing almost the same outfit, aside from the colour of their ties and badges. Bellatrix moved without the dreadful weight of Azkaban on her shoulders. Not like an animal anymore, but far more normal. The usual dark circles under her eyes were gone, and her hair fell around her face in gently tousled waves, not the chaotic unkempt style she wore at the battle, or at the Manor. Bellatrix looked, really, not that different from herself. It shocked Hermione. She was expecting the same warped visage of a human that was Bellatrix Lestrange, but it seemed Bellatrix Black was a normal 7th year student at Hogwarts, comparatively of course. 

“I’m uh, sorry. I didn’t see you. Are you alright?” Hermione asked. Automatically expressing concern for this unfamiliar person. She was so unlike the monster who carved into her skin. She seemed human. And she seemed to know Hermione’s name. It made her feel off balance.

“It’s fine, just be more careful. Where are you going, anyway? Charms starts soon.” Bellatrix spoke to her with familiarity. At least she didn’t have to try and break the ice with a Death Eater. Hermione was very good at handling social formalities but that may have been too much, for even her. 

“I’m-uh.. Just going for a walk.” Hermione looked into the girl’s eyes and saw in them the Bellatrix she knew. The intensity not gained, then, from an affinity with violence and destruction, or years as the right hand of Voldemort, but simply from her own character. She had about her a certain type of listlessness, resigned perhaps to life at Hogwarts away from her family and family’s expectations. It was her 7th year and next year Bellatrix would no doubt be thrust into marriage offers, and the tall, dark shadow of Voldemort. Hermione supposed she was just burning time here. It didn’t matter what her marks were or who she befriended, her life was already planned out for her, in merciless detail - including her eventual imprisonment. It was surreal to be looking Bellatrix in the face like this, at the start of it all. 

Bellatrix looked at her with furrowed brows, “I’ll never understand Gryffindors.” The young witch gazed out at some unseen horizon and walked off down the hall, presumably toward Charms. Hermione, who was more than a little stunned by the encounter, watched her go with a look of confusion plastered across her face. She had just walked head first into the most dangerous and unpredictable witch of her time, and survived. Rather that Bellatrix hadn’t drawn her wand at all, hadn’t called her a Mudblood, hadn't even struck her across the face for being so careless. Unexpected. Bewildering. Alarming. Hermione realised she had been looking through layers of violence, trauma, anger all built up around Bellatrix like layers of unbreakable glass refracting her true self. She wondered how many layers were on her now. It must not have been many. She was almost pleasant. The witch was like two halves of a whole that didn’t yet fit together. Nothing about this Bellatrix signified who she would become. Here, Hermione found herself witness to another death. Retrospectively watching this young witch forsake her humanity, forsake her life for the Death Eater cause. Hermione felt sorry for her. She shook her head and imagined what Harry and Ron would think of her for feeling sorry for Bellatrix Lestrange. 

Not sure, now, how long she had until class started, Hermione decided to head towards Charms herself. Consciously walking a little slower than she normally would to make sure she would arrive after Bellatrix got there. She felt anxious, and shy about talking to the witch again, not wanting to attract too much attention to herself just yet. Hermione didn’t want to look at the girl and see Bellatrix Lestrange, and she didn’t want to ever look at Bellatrix Lestrange and see this normal young girl from Hogwarts. How difficult it must have been for Andromeda and Narcissa to watch their sister transform like that, and for something as insignificant as blood. Still, Hermione had to be wary around her. Bellatrix knew her name, but Hermione suspected being a muggle-born wasn’t something that had been shared when she came back. After all, Bellatrix made no mention of it. 

Hermione arrived at charms just as students were being let into the classroom. The novelty of attending classes again hadn’t worn off and she had to suppress a smile as she stepped inside the large, stone room. She had missed this terribly. As she came toward a large set of oak tables Bellatrix waved her over, indicating to a vacant seat beside her. Sheepishly Hermione shuffled into the reserved seat, being greeted with a subtle nod of acknowledgement from the witch. Hermione marvelled at her situation, Bellatrix Lestrange had just saved her a seat. But it wasn’t Lestrange, then. It was still Bellatrix, from the noble house of Black. The very house that kept the locket she was so desperately in need of. It was another time, and she was another Bellatrix. It was impossible to equate the two, because they did not match. There was no reconciliation between the animal that clawed Mudblood into her forearm, and this young witch who saved her a seat in Charms. And so Hermione would treat them as such. Bellatrix Black seemed tolerable, if even pleasant. Though, it was of no consequence whether she was kind or as Hermione knew her. It was imperative that she get to Grimmauld Place, and her only way there was Bellatrix.

“Thanks for saving me a seat.” Hermione offered nonchalantly. 

“Look, I only let you sit here because everyone else in the class talks too much.” 

“Oh, uh.. Sorry.” Hermione pulled out her notebook and pretended not to notice the witch next to her, with both her elbows resting on the table and her head propped up on one hand. 

A professor Hermione didn’t recognise began speaking, detailing that today they would start N.E.W.T. preparation by conjuring water. An outstanding grade would be achieved by students who were able to reliably cast a water making spell that produced potable water, he noted. Hermione was used to casting spells in heat of battle and the long silence between. She knew how to conjure water, to heal wounds, to deflect spells. She knew how to do it all quickly, accurately. There was no room for mistakes outside of Hogwarts. The classroom was a safe, still, danger-free environment to learn, and it made Hermione feel as if she had missed something. As if there was some unspoken, unarticulated expectation from this class that everyone aside from herself knew. To achieve an outstanding grade for conjuring drinkable water seemed too simple. But as she watched the uneasy looks exchanged between students at the professor’s words Hermione realised that she had outgrown Hogwarts long ago. Next to her Bellatrix sat with palpable ease, as if she too felt her feet dangle off the edge of the bed that had become too small for her. 

The professor waved his wand and small brass goblets appeared in front of each student. Around her she saw students casting Aguamenti with wildly varying success. A Hufflepuff girl was concentrating very hard on her goblet as puffs of steam escaped from her wand tip, another had spurts of water launching out of his wand and missing the goblet entirely. Beside her Hermione watched as Bellatrix picked up her wand carefully and aimed it at the goblet. It was the first time Hermione had seen her wand, that gnarled appendage. It seemed entirely out of place with this young witch from Slytherin, much too long and much too warped. It was a murderer’s wand, the wand of a Death Eater, but not the wand of a student. Hermione watched as she wielded it with the same white-knuckled grip as always. 

“Aguamenti.” The tip of Bellatrix’s wand began to shift, ever so slightly. Small bubbles began to form on the dark, wooden surface. The bubbles grew larger, before forming droplets and spilling off the end of the wand. A dark stream of liquid sputtered into the brass goblet in front of the witch, and a foul smell wafted up from the noxious fluid. Hermione grimaced and covered her nose. Bellatrix let out a frustrated sigh and tapped the edge of her goblet with her still wet wand, emptying the brown liquid. 

Hermione, quite stunned that the brilliant Bellatrix Lestrange couldn’t summon clean water correctly cleared her throat and turned away from the scene, pretending she didn’t just see the witch fail a N.E.W.T. level spell. She suspected Bellatrix’s pride was one of the few key features of her personality that were still intact. Raising her own wand Hermione cast the spell, as she had done hundreds of times before, “Aguamenti.”

A jet of clear water shot out the end of her wand, filling the goblet almost instantly. The professor noted her achievement and exclaimed excitedly, “Excellent work, Hermione! Ten points to Gryffindor.” She pretended not to notice the frustrated looks from all the other students in the class, including the witch sitting beside her. Hermione lifted the goblet to her lips and drank the water. 

“You have definitely done that before, so it doesn’t count.” Her eyes locked with Bellatrix’s who was looking over at her now empty goblet enviously. “How did you get the water so clear?” She asked.

“I’m not sure how to describe it, it’s almost like you imagine the water flowing through your wand?” Hermione offered, honestly. The Bellatrix she knew was extremely proud of how good her magic was. Even if that magic mostly involved the Cruciatus Curse. “Sort of like the water already exists, you’re just redirecting it with your wand.” 

“Hmm.” Replied the witch. “Alright.”

The young witch aimed again, her brows knitting themselves together in concentration. She spoke clearly, with the tip of her wand hovering just above the opening of the goblet. “Aguamenti.” This time a thin stream of brown water shot from the tip of Bellatrix’s wand with such intensity that it knocked the goblet over with a metallic clang, spilling what little it had gathered on the wooden desk. “Ugh. Looks like all I can conjure is pond water. I’m sure technically it’s drinkable, but I wouldn’t even make you drink it, Granger.”

For the remainder of the lesson Hermione instructed Bellatrix on her technique. There were several iterations of the witch’s Aguamenti, the best being a clear stream of water that smelled like algae. It seemed her wild nature came out in her magic, and at this point in time Bellatrix hadn’t worked out how to disguise it, or control it. Hermione marvelled at how the other witch tried and tried again to get the spell correct, never becoming angry, only letting out puffs of frustration every now and again. The signs of household discipline, she supposed. There would be no room under the roof of Grimmauld Place for rage and anger, Druella was angry enough for several generations of Black. At the end of the lesson when everyone was packing up their things Hermione stood to leave, but Bellatrix grabbed her by the arm, quickly letting go once the Gryffindor turned around. “Practice this with me tonight, after the last class. I’ll meet you after supper.” Hermione noted how the witch didn’t request but simply state, she was already used to getting her way, especially when it came to other students. Hermione shrugged and nodded her head, it seemed she wouldn’t need to study the practical side of the N.E.W.T.s, but may need to ration her time more carefully when it came to writing scrolls. She had been sent back to find the locket, but it never hurt to get some more studying done when she was able. Especially now since she had the entire Hogwarts library at her disposal. “Great.” Bellatrix replied, before standing and leaving the classroom herself. Hermione was hopeful, then, that she had found a way to become valuable to the witch. To be invited to her house. To get the locket.


	5. The Bathroom

Hermine was standing just outside the entrance to the Great Hall, leaning against a stone pillar. She had already sat down earlier and had a comforting supper of leek and potato soup, with crispy, fresh bread. She had agreed to meet Bellatrix at this spot, at this time so that they might go over the Slytherin’s spellwork together. And so Hermione stood, scanning in front of her to see if the witch was on her way, when she was drawn from her thoughts by a slender hand on her shoulder. 

“Ready to go?” Bellatrix asked. 

Hermione smiled warmly at her, just like any friend would do. She thought that maybe if she could imitate being the witch’s friend already then she would have to spend less time convincing Bellatrix to invite her over. Hermione assumed from what she already knew of Bellatrix that she wasn’t really the emotionally forward type, and would likely appreciate the Gryffindor taking the lead, socially at least. “Yeah, all set. Did you eat already?” 

Bellatrix shrugged and began walking, with Hermione following next to her. “I don’t like sitting at the tables for supper, it’s too crowded. Too many first years. I had my food brought to my room. It’s amazing what having my last name will do for you.” 

There it was. That arrogance she knew. Above it all. Above everyone. Too good for this or that. She was Bellatrix alright, even by the name of Black she was still the same. Hermione knew, however, that she couldn’t let her discomfort show. That she couldn’t let Bellatrix see who she really was, and especially what she really was. Though it made her stomach twist and her clothes cling far too tight to her skin she had to remain placid. To accept. To joke. To laugh. To sympathise with all things uttered from those hateful lips. “You’re uh- you’re right. It must be much nicer eating away from all that.”

Bellatrix seemed satisfied with her answer and kept walking, leading Hermione to a makeshift classroom of the Slytherin’s choosing. She decided not to question, instead going along with wherever the girl had selected, there was no hesitation in her gate. She knew firmly already where they were going. They would make an interesting sight, Bellatrix and herself, walking the halls of Hogwarts. It felt for Hermione like it had only been days since the battle, since many of her allies fell to the hands of the witch walking confidently next to her. But for now the battle hadn't happened. And wouldn’t do so for another 30 or so years, Hermione wasn’t sure of the exact date and it seemed a little too strange to go around asking people what year it was. In the corner of her vision Hermione watched Bellatrix closely. Taking in each detail, and comparing it with every one she knew from her present. Her hair was different. It was much more groomed looking. Falling in gentle waves over her shoulders, with a few stray hairs here and there. Her eyes skimmed lazily over passing students, rather than her signature paroxysm of surveillance. When they had first encountered Bellatrix Lestrange in the Ministry of Magic her eyes moved as quickly as a hawk’s eyes, and she fought like one too. Soaring high above her prey before swooping down to steal them from the ground. Snatching them. Bellatrix smelled different, too. The scent of the Death Eater, as if burned into her mind, never really left her. Dirt, and sweat, with a trace of something floral concealed beneath the misery. But this young girl smelled clean, and fresh. A gentle whisper of violet came off her robes every so often and took Hermione by surprise. It was such a gentle scent for someone with such a violent future. Hermione wondered when she stopped wearing perfume, or if the habit simply escaped her when she was imprisoned Azkaban. Violets would be eviscerated in seconds in that seafaring prison. Crushed under the terror of a dementor’s kiss. 

Hermione followed Bellatrix to the second floor before she worked out where they were going. As the familiar corridors unfolded one after the other she remembered her body turning to stone. The terrifying visage burned into the forefront of her mind whenever she closed her eyes for months after she came back to movement. She recalled the creak of bones and the ache of muscles. She recalled Penelope Clearwater’s mirror, and how her hand yearned to clasp it for all those weeks. Petrified. She became aware, then, of a palpable dampness on her hands. Yet another fear response triggered by the witch. 

“Are we headed to the 2nd floor girl’s bathroom?” Hermione asked, trying to sound as indifferent as possible. 

“Yes. It’s like a hurricane year-round in there, thanks to dear old Moaning Myrtle. I figure she wouldn’t notice a bit more water.” Bellatrix offered, confidently. 

Hermione wondered how focused she and Bellatrix would be able to remain if the infamous ghost of the girl’s bathroom bothered them too much. Myrtle always liked Harry, one bullied child to another, but Hermione had doubts she would be so accepting of Bellatrix and her uncrushable ego. Rounding the final corner Hermione and her unlikely companion pushed the heavy, wooden door open and stepped into the bathroom. It was always unfortunate, Hermione thought, that such a lovely bathroom came with such a strident inhabitant. As soon as the door behind them swung closed Myrtle rose up from behind a closed cubicle door and looked them both over thoroughly. Bellatrix stood with her brows cocked smugly, while Hermione mentally braced for the inevitable deluge. 

“Who’s this Gryffindor and Slytherin in my toilet? Come to make fun of Myrtle? Come to see the Ravenclaw ghostie in the toilet?” Myrtle floated down towards them from the ceiling, her gaze shifting between the two strangers suspiciously. Hermione, automatically, went into damage control in anticipation of Bellatrix saying something horrible. 

“Hello Myrtle, my name is Hermione, and this is my friend Bellatrix. We’ve come to your- your bathroom to practice for our N.E.W.T.s. We won’t be too long, I hope that’s okay?” Hermione spoke earnestly to the girl. 

“I never got the chance to take my N.E.W.T.s. Never got the chance to graduate. Or go home for Christmas. Or go home ever again!” She scrabbled around in her robes and pulled a tissue out of some unseen pocket and held it to her eyes. “But it would be so nice to have some company. As long as you keep those mean boys out.” 

Hermione sighed with relief, next to her she heard Bellatrix speak up. “Come on now Myrtle, we’ll have a regular girl’s night of it - you, me, and Granger here. We could lock the door and keep the rest of the riff-raff out, easy as ravens!” 

“Oh that would be so lovely. I got in trouble when I tried to seal the door. Myrtle you’re being unreasonable, they said. Myrtle you’re causing trouble, they said. Where were they when the boy and his snake came?” Myrtle descended further, standing at eye level, face to face with Bellatrix and Hermione. Shifting between them both as she spoke. 

The Slytherin witch turned to Hermione, a smug and knowing smile on her face. “Sounds very reasonable to me, doesn’t it Granger?” 

Hermione nodded with a smile on her face, she was happy to see that Bellatrix was just as wary with Moaning Myrtle as she was. She supposed that the witch must have had more than a handful of unpleasant run-ins with the ghost.

Myrtle returned to her hideaway in the farthest stall and Hermione began to look around the bathroom. Her eyes scanned the walls, the floor, and came to rest on the bower of sinks in the middle of the room. She had come here with Ron once. To get into the Chamber that rested below their feet. Walking over to one of the sinks she tried not to draw attention to herself as she ran the tips of her fingers over the silhouette of a snake wrapped around the tap. Hermione tried to imagine what the basilisk was doing now, where it’s terrible maw laid. Churning beneath the floor as some great snake. Was it asleep, or awake? Did it hear her footsteps above? Hogwarts was full of secrets. So many secret passages. Secret doors. And secret Chambers hiding all manner of creatures, if one knew where to look. 

Silently, Bellatrix came to stand next to her, and it made Hermione jump. The witch seemed not to notice and carried on speaking anyway. “I’ve heard there’s a hidden puzzle in this room somewhere, hidden as plain as day apparently. It opens a door that leads to a terrible place.” 

Hermione’s heart quickened in her chest. Bellatrix seemed to be testing her, seeing what she knew. Hermione imagined the joy the other witch might take in dragging her down into the Chamber of Secrets and watching the basilisk devour her whole. She imagined then, too, the walls in that awful pit melting away to reveal her true prison, being back in the dungeon below the living room of Malfoy Manor. Hallucinating this all to escape in the only way she knew. Hermione closed her eyes and squeezed her toes against the sole of her shoes. She was here. This was real. As unbelievable as traveling back in time to befriend Bellatrix Lestrange may have been. 

“No I hadn’t heard that, it must be a Slytherin thing. Anyway, shall we get to it?” Hermione asked, trying her best to seem uninterested and chipper. 

“Hmm. You’re probably right, all that time in the dungeons sends some of them mad.” Bellatrix drew her wand and aimed it at the sink. “So you said to imagine my wand is full of water, right?” 

“Uh- sort of. Imagine more that there’s water flowing through it. It helps you visualise the spell.” Hermione drew her wand too, and aimed it in the sink.    
  
“Like a pair of boys comparing willies we are, don’t you reckon?” Bellatrix laughed, surprisingly it was not too far off the signature maniacal cackle Hermione had heard all too many times before. It was an unfortunate laugh for someone so young, the Gryffindor imagined what it must have been like raising a child with that laugh. Still, she couldn’t help but snicker herself, Harry and Ron had made similar jokes too when they first learned the spell. 

Myrtle’s voice came floating up over the cubicle door in her sorrowful dialect, “I’m glad they don’t let boys in here, they can be so cruel.” She sniffed back tears a few times. 

“Okay, so let’s try cast.” Hermione pointed her wand into the sink and cast the spell. As before, a jet of clear water shot out the end of her wand and filled the sink half way up before the water began to drain away, spiralling down into the pipes and caverns below.

Next to her Bellatrix did the same. First pointing her wand into the sink, and then reciting the incantation. “Aguamenti.” As before, a spluttering of muddied water came from the witch’s wand and sprayed all over the white porcelain of the sink they were both standing at, as well as both sinks either side. Bellatrix let out a frustrated sigh. “See, it always comes out like that! A filthy river run-eth through me it seems.” 

Hermione looked down at the dirt splatter coating the back of the sink. “Are you sure you’re imagining clear water?” 

“I thought I was, but maybe I don’t know what clear water looks like anymore. Let me try again.” Bellatrix readjusted her wand and cast the spell again. As if from the most pure mountain flow a thin stream of clear water came out the tip of Bellatrix’s wand. From some unseen source light refracted through the stream, casting a thousand glittering fragments of rainbow all over the bathroom walls. A perfect crystalline prism, flowing with the ease of water.

“Brilliant!” Hermione was genuinely pleased for the witch. “I’ve never seen an Aguamenti sparkle like that before, what were you thinking of?” 

“Mother’s favourite chandelier, actually. It’s huge and ridiculous and I daren’t say the house wouldn’t quite be home without it.” Hermione was surprised at how witty Bellatrix was, she seemed to have a very particular way of speaking. The few times she had heard the witch speak, outside of her visit to the Manor, she had always said things in very strange ways. At the time Hermione had simply just attributed it to the Akzaban-triggered madness, but it seemed it was one of her earnest and enduring traits. There was a lightness to her, absent from the Bellatrix of the present. She seemed slightly aloof, but intensely intelligent at the same time. In this regard she wasn’t entirely dissimilar to Luna, although Luna most of the time seemed to be carrying on a conversation with several unseen partners. 

“Myrtle-moo, did you see that!? Perfect Aguamenti. If I can keep that up for the N.E.W.T.s it’ll be a perfect outstanding, I’d say.” Bellatrix turned to face Myrtle, who rose up over the cubicle divider once more. 

“It’s a good thing I’m not learning - not breathing - not living - otherwise I’d cast Aguamenti all day and drown that wretched snake.” Myrtle mimed a slithering snake with her forearm and eyed it aggressively as it swam through the air. It seemed Myrtle was always on the lookout for the basilisk that killed her, wary most likely of its proximity to her makeshift home behind the U-bend. Hermione understood, then, why Myrtle liked Harry so much. He got rid of the snake. 

  
  



	6. The Friend

Hermione was surprised by Bellatrix’s natural aptitude for magic. She knew the older witch was skilled, yes, and so very deadly with a wand. But Hermione always imagined the skill, the power, came from hate. Came from trauma creeping through her veins in orderly frozen tendrils linking her all the way back to that stone hollow in Azkaban. Hermione watched in gentle awe as the future Death Eater filled the sink with clear, sparkling water. The Gryffindor having trouble equating such purity with such a sadistic witch. She wondered when the change took place. When Bellatrix became the witch Hermione knew all too well. When her gentle and soft edges were replaced by unrelenting force and scrutiny. She wondered how long Voldemort had to push her before she broke. Wondered how she yielded beneath that terrible grip. 

It made Hermione feel queasy. Imagining it. Thinking of how it happened. She wondered if it was slow, as some kind of sinister bloom opening its petals to spring, or if it was quick like a viper’s strike. The Bellatrix before her seemed relatively unremarkable, aside from her penchant for alliteration and rhyming slang. If it had been a slow process of transformation, of violence, and of hate, then she would surely be showing signs by now. It would be unlikely, she thought, that a member of the Black family would be left idle for too long once finishing their studies. Draco had been drawn in slowly by Voldemort. A slow drip of poison seeping into his heart until it overflowed, and was purged. Narcissa Malfoy never took the Death Eater mantle, and Hermione suspected she would want Draco to avoid the pallid, sweaty fate of his father who’s eyes looked as if they sunk further and further each time she saw him. He, too, had fallen too far. Had promised everything to the Dark Lord and been unable to deliver. But by now, Hermione thought, as she watched this young and unmarked Bellatrix stirring the sink of water with the tip of her wand, she would be showing signs. Symptoms of the sickness. But there were none. Draco had bragged and called about how he had no need for charms class anymore, but Bellatrix seemed obviously very happy to practice and hone her craft. The darkness, wherever it was, hadn’t quite struck her heart yet. 

“What do you think, Hermione, worthy of a N.E.W.T.?” Bellatrix asked, proudly.

“Of course,” she said, drawn from her thoughts and faced suddenly with an unarticulated choice. “I think you’ll be good.”

“I believe it’s  _ I think you’ll do well _ , Hermione.” Bellatrix corrected before turning back to her water, which was now bubbling and frothing over the edges of the sink to Myrtle’s delight.

Hermione stood, shocked for a moment, to have been corrected by the future notorious Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange. She understood then, how Ron must have felt all those times. Not entirely embarrassed but certainly aware of the error. But she wasn’t absolutely incorrect. As being  _ absolutely  _ incorrect was something Hermione strived to avoid at all costs. She was thinking of Bellatrix. Thinking how she would have changed. And thinking how to change it all. If she could delay the Slytherin’s inevitable indoctrination even for a few months it may have a substantial impact on the present. A chorus of voices rose up in her then, protesting making too many changes, telling her she was being irresponsible, and sternly reminding her to mark this reality lightly. She had imagined on first arriving here that she would remove only the locket. Leave in this past a small hole only the size of the horcrux itself. Bellatrix Lestrange would leave an unmendable gouge in the fabric of time. But she had been sent back to change it all. To repair what was wrong. To find that which was hidden. And so why shouldn’t she aim to cripple Voldemort. To take his most faithful, most ferocious, and most loyal follower before from beneath him. 

Hermione marvelled at Bellatrix, then, the gravity of it all slowly dawning on her. As if to feel the celestial warmth creeping up her legs, her hips, her stomach. Filling her chest with heat. With life. With  _ possibility. _

It could all change. 

_ All  _ of it. 

Whether or not there was a prophetic verse to dictate her actions Hermione was going to try her best to convert, or at least prevent, Bellatrix Black falling to the Dark Lord. And with her gone the Longbottoms, Sirius, Dobby, and all beings enumerate affected by the lunacy of the woman would tumble down too. Back to life. She had to at least try. 

“Bellatrix, do you spend much time in the library?” Hermione asked, trying her best to appear nonchalant and friendly. Trying to appear as if she hadn’t just decided to change this girl’s whole life in an instant. 

“More than I ought to. Mother says I spend too much time with my nose in a book. Says no husband will want a wife who reads all day.” 

“And what do you say to her?” Hermione smiled, amused to imagine Druella Black on the losing end of an argument.

“I tell her I don’t want some illiterate oaf of a husband.” Bellatrix shrugged and put her wand back in her pocket. “I find you can tell a lot about a person by how much they read.”

Hermione’s smiled widened. She knew, then, that it could be done. They were more similar than she was first willing to admit, but now their similarities would be Hermione’s greatest asset. 

“What are you smiling about? Do I have something on my face?” Bellatrix quickly whipped her head back toward the basin and began preening herself methodically looking for the offending blemish.

  
  



	7. The Goblin Rebellion of 1612

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you so much for reading and commenting - it's been fantastic to hear all of your thoughts about the story so far. I hope you all enjoy this chapter and I will see you again soon <3

As it was Hermione and Bellatrix fell into a comfortable routine of sorts. Twice a week they would meet in the library and go over their scrolls from class. Bellatrix herself had quite a skill in Potions, while Hermione excelled in Charms, among others. It was a gentle routine, their meeting only decided a few hours beforehand at each instance, and Hermione could never be sure, really, when they would meet. Erratic and spontaneous, just like Bellatrix herself she supposed. Between their studies together Hermione kept up her journal at night in the common room, and filled it with questions she didn’t yet know the answers to. She hid the book under her mattress in the gentle hopes that her mind might stew upon them while she slept. It became a rhythm, a meditation, spiralling over and over again in an infinite loop in her head. 

_ Locket... Locket... Locket... _

Grimmauld Place. She knew it had to be there. It was where the damn thing was supposed to be, after all. Before Voldemort, that towering ghoul, stole it out of time. His desperation to live on, no matter the quality of life, astounded her. To live and watch yourself fade and wash away into some pale visage all for the sake of pure blood. It would be horrible. Hermione hoped soon enough to find the locket. To kill that wretched shade of a wizard. Someone ought to put him out of his misery. And why not a Muggleborn? It was the infamy and shame he deserved, after all, to be put down by a  _ Mudblood. _ The word had been carved into her in what felt like a lifetime ago. The sharp bite of a blade through her skin, the pleased and terribly cruel laughter of Bellatrix Lestrange when she leaned back and admired her craftsmanship. In all the weeks she had spent with Bellatrix Black, Hermione was yet to see her carve into anything, not even a desk, let alone a forearm. The habit hadn’t settled in her to begin with, no, it was bidden to her with so many other sadistic tendencies over time. Perhaps she learned from demonstration, or perhaps she learned from her own experience. Hermione shuddered inwardly, imagining the carnage Voldemort would reap unrestrained. Bellatrix Lestrange had at least the restraint to stop, she considered most definitely that Voldemort would not. 

They had been in the library for a time, her and Bellatrix, reading over some dust ridden and seldom-opened copy of  _ The Goblin Rebellion of 1612 _ , when the Slytherin exclaimed cheerily.

“There, see! Sneazelby the Snivelling! I told you he was the gobby-bobby that sold them out!”

Hermione, scanning the page steadily, countered proudly.    
  
“No, look here. Sneazelby was an agent of the Rebellion who went behind enemy lines and gathered very sensitive information that actually helped win the rebellion.”

Hermione was proud of herself for a moment, for outwitting the dark witch who had proven herself time and again to be her equal, in some areas at least. But the gentle look of satisfaction was wiped away instantly in a tidal wave of realisation. And any ego boost she may have taken from the situation along with it. 

_ She was Sneazelby. _

An agent, behind enemy lines, sourcing information to win the war for Dumbledore’s Army and the Aurors. Hermione burst into laughter and rested her head against her folded arms on the table, her shoulders wracking in silence as she recounted how similar to Sneazelby the Snivelling she really was. 

“Do you ever just..” She said between hearty laughs, “Do you ever feel like a Sneazelby sometimes??” 

Bellatrix paused a moment, as if trying to understand the apparent hidden meaning beneath the question, and looked Hermione earnestly.

“No, I’m not sure that I do.” 

Hermione wiped her eyes, surprised to find that plump tears welled in the corners at the thought of Sneazelby. At the thought of their dual plight. It was the first time in a long time she had laughed like this. She had missed it terribly. The rush of endorphins like stepping into a hot bath at the end of a long day. Beside her she watched as Bellatrix chuckled along with her, before leaning back in her chair and letting out a long sigh. Hermione scanned the book a little further to see if there was any further information on the all-too familiar goblin, but the author had begun to discuss wheat rations among the goblin proletariat in excruciating detail. 

“You know, I think I’m done for the day.” Bellatrix said, stretching her arms above her head. “I might even keep an ear out for our old mate Sneazelby next time I’m in History of Magic class.” 

Hermione nodded, closing the book in front of her. The giant and heavy tome clamped shut with a muffled slapping sound as a puff of brownish grey dust launched itself out of the pages. 

“Me too. I think I draw the line at identifying on a personal level with a goblin from 1612.”

“You need to get out more, Hermione.” Bellatrix widened her eyes and made a gesture with her hands akin to her head exploding. “Shame about that apparation license though…”

Hermione marvelled at her for a moment. First for a concern for the laws and regulations of wizarding society coming out of the lips of Bellatrix Black, and second the thought of Bellatrix Lestrange actually  _ getting out _ amused her endlessly. “What do you mean, I’ve never seen you leave the castle and you don’t particularly strike me as the party type. Where do you go that qualifies as getting out?” Hermione asked, a smirk barely containing itself across her face. 

She watched a moment as Bellatrix’s brows furrowed and her eyes ticked across the library as she scanned her memory, evidently drawing a blank. “Well I think we need to get out of this library for starters. I can feel myself withering away in here.”

Hermione’s expression sank, gently floating down from a confident smirk to the solemn realisation that this Bellatrix  _ did _ wither. She was twisted, tormented inside by Voldemort. Her natural charm drawn from her like so much blood and replaced with the Dark Mark. Hermione saw in front of her how the washes of time and the deep claws of Azkaban tug at the young Slytherin. Because for now that’s what she was. Young. A student at Hogwarts. It made Hermione feel queasy to equate the girl’s youth with the sunken eyes of Bellatrix Lestrange. The sadistic smile to reveal rotten and broken teeth. The vitality in her now was immense. She seemed alive. She seemed human, even. Hermione felt an overwhelming need to save this girl wash over her. To protect the witch from the ravages of Azkaban. The ravages of Voldemort. As if by some wild beast she had been torn from herself, and Hermione would heal those wounds before they were inflicted. 

“You’ve gone awfully quiet, Granger.” Bellatrix, miraculously restored, looked over her with concern. 

“Oh no it’s nothing, I’m just… Just glad I met you.” Hermione smiled at the witch. She was glad, truly.

“Duly noted.” Bellatrix stood up, having collected her things and winked at Hermione before gesturing for her to follow. 

“Fucking Bellatrix.” Hermione scoffed before walking after the Slytherin. 

  
  



	8. Breakfast

Hermione sat on her somewhat unfamiliar bed with her legs crossed. Before her laid open like a rolling and crinkled landscape was her notebook. By now filled with countless notes, scribblings, and page after page of crossed out musings. She flipped back and forth in the book, comparing the iron words of prophecy with her own delicate scribe. It reminded her of when Harry, Ron, and herself were hunting for horcruxes. Following desperate leads with no assurance they were the right ones to be following. The only way they knew if it was correct is if they destroyed a soul fragment at the end. Hermione supposed she had never really stopped hunting horcruxes. And she wouldn’t until the locket was hers. She couldn’t go back empty handed. Assuming she could go back at all. Her mind was a tangle of possibilities and by now she had read over the prophecy taken in her own hand hundreds of times.

_ Hidden in Darkness as the light dies. _

_ Great warrior fallen, where fates collide. _

_ On the eve of the first hides the half-blood prize. _

_ And in their union will death be denied. _

Beside the text Hermione had written what she suspected the prophecy meant. Inwardly she scolded herself for not succeeding in Divination, but a moment later forgave herself when she remembered with all too much fragrant detail the hours she had spent in that classroom under the tutelage of Sybill Trelawney. Hermione had tried very hard to learn, yes, but had come away from each lesson feeling more dejected than the last.

_ Hidden in Darkness - Bellatrix/Grimmauld?  _ _   
_ _ Great warrior - Harry? _

_ Fates collide - V/H  _

_ Eve of the first - V rising/war.  _

_ Half-blood - V _

_ Union = no death - horcruxes. _

Hermione sighed and looked over her notes. It was as far as she could get for now. Stopped short of a solution by an unseen and impassable wall. She dare not write Voldemort’s name down. Daring not to summon him, to alert him. Lest anyone should find her book. Somewhere a much younger Voldemort was growing in power. The most promising lead thus far was Bellatrix herself. Hermione felt they were becoming friends, as strange as that may have seemed to her when she was a couple of years younger, or rather even a few months earlier. Progressing their friendship further was her goal for now. When they studied together she would gently push at Bellatrix’s boundaries, asking about her family, her sisters, what she liked doing outside of the school term. Surprisingly, as it always was with the young Black witch, Bellatrix offered up her answers freely. She seemed happy to talk, and she seemed to want to get to know Hermione as well. The Gryffindor wondered if she would ever get used to standing face to face with Bellatrix without having curses hurled at her with the force of a truck. Adrenaline still sparked through her veins looking at the witch, recalling the pain crawling in her bones at the Malfoy Manor. But now they laughed together. Waited for each other after meal times in the Great Hall. It felt very familiar, and often she found herself wishing Harry or Ronald were there to see what had just happened, to remark on what the professor had just said, or simply to enjoy Hogwarts as it was before the battle. Whole and clean, with sunshine streaming through the tall gossamer windows. Hermione winced as she remembered the crashing and delicate twinkling when the windows had been blown out across the castle. As if the castle had shed a skin of glassy scales.

Hermione unfolded her legs, slipped her shoes on, collected her things, and set off toward the Great Hall in search of Bellatrix. Last night while they returned from the library together they had decided to meet this morning. It was the first time Bellatrix had asked to see her the following day instead of an impulsive meet up in some corner of the castle. Hermione found it nice, if a little strange. She passed many students on her way down, all of them were completely unknown to her - but she didn’t mind. It was better to not know anyone else here. It kept her focused on what was perhaps the most important task in all of wizarding history. Befriending Bellatrix Black. She was pleasant enough to the other Gryffindor students she saw, smiled and made small talk with the few who shared her dorm. It was refreshing to hear about their problems - too much homework, troubles with their boyfriends, potions assignments. Normal things. Not  _ the Ministry of Magic has been taken over by Voldemort and we’re all likely to die.  _

As she continued past all the other students Hermione wondered how  _ he  _ got back here. Why he hadn’t put more protections in place to ensure the total destruction of any and all who opposed him. The kind of magic needed to send someone back in time would be incredible. She made a mental note to research it in the library later on. With no obvious traps laid, nor ambushers awaiting in the shadows for her, it occured to Hermione that perhaps Voldemort didn’t make it back at all, and had sent the locket in his place. What better tactic to avoid certain destruction than to escape at the last moment to an unknown location in time. Hermione’s brow furrowed as she followed the thought in her mind, such magic would leave a trace, surely? She had heard Dumbledore talk about it once or twice - had heard Harry recount what he said a few times more. She imagined Druella Black sniffing out the anomaly and secreting it away somewhere. Hermione cringed inwardly. She hoped that awful woman hadn’t discovered the locket that slumbered deep with a heavy affliction somewhere in her house. Druella was a dragon hoarding treasure more valuable than she could fathom. 

“You look very serious Hermione.” Hermione, dragging herself from her thoughts, found herself once again face to face with Bellatrix Black, who was waiting outside the Great Hall for her perched on the edge of a stair with her chin resting in her hands. “You’re a very serious character, and I’m wondering why we get along because you’re just so serious.” Bellatrix seemed tired, or at least sleepy, as she often was in the mornings. They had, on many occasions, debated together at length whether classes should start later in the day or not. Hermione preferred to get things done early and have plenty of free time to allocate as needed to study. Bellatrix preferred sleeping in and staying up late. She could understand where the Slytherin was coming from - there was a quiet solitude that came with being the last one awake in the dormitories. The pressure of the day sunk low with the sun and gone. The cold night air spilling in through the windows where they hung open like words unsaid. The gentle waver of a candle casting long and shifting shadows over every surface. It was a still and contemplative time, and perhaps because Hermione simply had too much to contemplate she avoided that solemn hour. She had far too many memories of painful things that would claw at her when she was idle. Some in the form her friend’s lifeless bodies that crashed into her heart and made it sink, and some as gentle as the ashen snow that fell from the sky after The Burrow was burned to the ground. Warm at first against her skin but after a time they began to burn. Harry. Ron. Watching slowly as every trace of her existence was wiped from her parent’s minds. 

Bellatrix stood up, brushed her skirt and readjusted the hem of her sweater. The young witch walked over to Hermione and indicated listlessly toward the half-full tables in the hall. “Fancy some pumpkin juice? Tea?” Bellatrix didn’t wait for an answer and instead walked over to the large Gryffindor table and sat down. 

A few of the younger students murmured amongst themselves at the new interloper before Bellatrix stuck her tongue out at them and the murmurs stopped. Hermione sat down beside her and laughed quietly. Everything was a surprise with Bellatrix. Her personality not yet molded by duty she was unpredictable, and had a very distinct and unique charm about her. Hermione thought she might make an excellent professor, the kind first year students rave about because they make learning all the basics fun and interesting. A professor or a writer, she thought. 

“Have you ever thought about teaching, Bellatrix?” Herminoe asked, as she brought a goblet of pumpkin juice to her lips.

Bellatrix, who had already taken a sip, snorted into her goblet. Wiping the juice from her chin she turned to Hermione. “Definitely not.”

“You would be an excellent teacher, I think. You’re very entertaining. Oh, you have some uh- on your eyebrow.” Hermione looked over at Bellatrix who was busy investigating just how far the offending beverage had spread, but had missed a small droplet of it that nestled just above her right eyebrow. Bellatrix ungraciously began rubbing her sleeve across her face.

“Better?” She asked, looking what could only be described as frazzled. 

“Yes, you’re all clear” Hermione smiled at the dark haired witch. It was easy to find her endearing like this, rough around the edges and nowhere near as detached from reality as the Bellatrix she knew. 

“I don’t think being entertaining makes a very good professor - there’s no entertainer category on the N.E.W.Ts. Besides which anyway mother would object on every ground she could. She’s not much of an academic. You know, aside from Astronomy. And even then she can’t have been that good. My sisters and I were supposed to be named after stars you see, but mother decided little Cissy would be named after a flower. Narcissa. Goodness knows why she did that.” Bellatrix spoke of her family so easily, with no guard or shame about her would-be-deffector of a sibling Andromeda. It was strange to imagine all three Black sisters living in the same house together. They all seemed so at odds with each other. Narcissa is beautiful and gentle, and a doting mother. Andromeda fell out of favour with her parents, scorched from the family tree, for marrying a Muggle-born. And Bellatrix held an intensity like no other witch or wizard Hermione had ever met. Even now, much younger than she ever was when Hermione knew her initially, she was intense. Underneath the awkward stumblings of youth rumbled a distant storm to shape the witch into the animalistic predator she knew too well. 

“Do you get on well with your sisters?” Hermione asked, curious as to when the rifts between them began to shear. 

“Hmh.” Bellatrix nodded and vocallised through her mouthful of pumpkin juice. Swallowing, she replied. “Absolutely. We’re all very close. We talk about everything, really. Sometimes mother and father are a little too.. Abrasive for them, so often I’m a bit of damage control between them all. Oldest sister and all. I’ve spoken to them about you too, about how you seemed to pop up out of nowhere, bit of a surprise really, I know you’ve been in some of my classes before but I’m just not sure why we haven’t spoken until recently. It’s been nice, definitely. Most of the people in Slytherin learn about my last name and want to tell me all about their own families and their status blah blah blah. Hermione I don’t think you’ve ever been in the Slytherin dungeon but I will warn you it’s mostly just a load of Purebloods tossing each other off about how much land their father owns.” 

Hermione grimaced at the mental image and was surprised by Bellatrix’s cynicism toward the other Pureblood families. It seemed much of her indoctrination into the Death Eater ranks occurred outside of Hogwarts. Hermione wondered whether that’s why Bellatrix detested Hogwarts so much. As soon as she graduated her parents might have sat her down and told her it was all a lie and that none of it really mattered. Disillusioned, dejected, and looking for recognition of her numerous talents it was no wonder she turned to Voldemort. 

“I tell you what,” Bellatrix continued, “Next time we have a free weekend I’ll ask father if you can come and visit and meet my sisters.” As casual as anything Hermione was then admitted into the snake’s den, the start of it all, 12 Grimmauld Place when it was inhabited by Bellatrix and her family. The resting place of the  _ half-blood prize. _

“That would be really lovely, thank you.” Hermione smiled against the goblet she cradled in her hands. It was as if she could feel the gentle machinations of prophecy working around her. The gentle tick of thoughts, the decisive turn of actions, the machine of Voldemort’s demise ticking to life and taking her further in. 

Bellatrix was halfway through chewing a piece of toast she had crammed into her mouth before she spoke, her lips smacking together in the most ungracious display of table manners she had seen since the time she watched Ron and Seamus compete to see who could cram the most Bertie Bott’s beans into their mouths. Ron had ended up winning, but only because Seamus got one that tasted like rancid milk. “It won’t be anything too special, mother and father are usually caught up in their own things. I mean it’s not like I’m bringing home a husband. We had one boy and his parents over recently, they want to set up a marriage once I graduate. Anyway he was dreadful and I mean it, absolutely dreadful. You would think that pureblood meant they’d all be very handsome. Desperately meek this boy. Couldn’t even stand to look at him.”

Hermione wondered if she meant Rodolphus Lestrange. She couldn’t imagine, really, what the man looked like. All Death Eaters and Snatchers looked the same - a hazard of the occupation she supposed. The sunken features and hollow dark eyes. Bellatrix Lestrange never made any particular gesture towards him, nor spoke to him directly. It seemed her apathy towards getting a husband was one of the few things that stayed with her after Hogwarts. 

“Do you think you’ll get married eventually?” Hermione asked casually, biting into a piece of toast of her own.

“Oh I don’t know, I think I’d much rather look at pretty girls for the rest of my life honestly.” Bellatrix turned to Hermione and shrugged. “Y’know?” 

“What?” Was the only reply Hermione was capable of. Suddenly so many pieces of the conundrum that was Bellatrix Lestrange fell ever so perfectly into place. It wasn’t that Bellatrix wasn’t interested in getting married, it’s that Bellatrix wasn’t interested in boys at all. Suddenly the chained animal howling at her cage door seemed relatable and understandable - Bellatrix had been denied on all fronts and followed the obligations of her family line and would do so until she died. Turmoil and torment and resentment bubbled under her skin always, and in idle moments she might find herself wondering on whether she could have left like Andromeda and found happiness with a witch whom she loved, rather than marrying a man she was chained to marry. Bellatrix’s fate was decided by everyone around her, and never herself. Duty, above all.

“I had no idea.” Hermione said, forgetting where she was.


	9. Arithmancy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and I hope you're enjoying all these new chapters! If you can please leave a comment and let me know what you think so far <3

“I mean, not that there’s a problem with that or anything. Same sex relationships are totally normal in wizarding society.” Hermione continued, trying desperately to sound casual but failing dreadfully. Inwardly she cringed at specifying wizarding society, as if Bellatrix Black would have any concern for Muggle social norms. 

“See what I mean Hermione, too serious.” Bellatrix poked at some loose crumbs on her plate and stood up. “Come on then, we better get to class. What do you have?” 

“Oh- um. Arithmancy next.” Hermione felt a blush rising up her cheeks, making her feel hot and huge and awkward. Great. 

“Blech. Glad I’m not in that snore fest. Meet you in The Quad after?” The Slytherin walked out of the Great Hall and disappeared behind the growing crowd of mobile students making their way to classes. Hermione was surprised by her honesty. By her admission. It must have been a terrible weight to carry for all those years. She wondered if there had ever been some secret witch Bellatrix had loved. Wondered if the Dementors of Azkaban tore every gilded fibre of happiness from the memories with her. 

The thought of it made Hermione’s heart feel heavy. Voldemort was a terrible blight on the lives of so many witches and wizards. Death and grief clung to him like an ever present shadow. The darkness spread like ink to all things he touched. She had begun to feel more and more protective of Bellatrix Black in the few weeks they had known each other for. This unusual and yet very personable young witch was excellent company. There was an intelligence about her that gave away her dedication to her studies. That suggested she knew more about the function of the world beyond the protective stone walls of Hogwarts. A lesson only learned through experience.

Hermione arrived at her classroom and found a seat somewhere near the back. Usually she would sit up front so as not to be distracted by the idle chatter and fidgeting of her fellow students but today her mind was busy. Too busy to pay absolute attention in class. Truthfully Hermione was painfully aware of how much she had outgrown Hogwarts. The magic she had practiced a thousand times over in Dumbledore’s Army overshadowed even the most difficult magic taught at the Hogwarts she found herself at now. Bellatrix was a conundrum. A riddle impossible to solve. A prophecy undecipherable. She sighed and flipped open her notebook and scrawled on an unused page:

_ What happened? _

She drew an underline beneath the question and began scrawling what she knew about Bellatrix so far. Extrapolating where and how the Dark Lord crept in when she could. If she could find some way to intervene in even one of the definitive moments in Bellatrix’s life it could be enough to alter the present. To take Voldemort’s most loyal follower. A single stone dropped in a lake will alter it forever. The ripples spreading out and out, becoming waves, crashing on the shore and on and on the ricochet would multiply until it cracked Voldemort’s skull in half and spilled his blood. Hermione scanned her mind for things she knew about Bellatrix Lestrange. The dark witch had always been a sensitive subject. She had murdered Sirius, and tortured Neville’s parents beyond recovery. It made her skin crawl to think of it. 

Class began and the hubbub around her quietened down. The professor waved their wand and charts of all kinds were distributed across the desks. Hermione ended up with two particularly damaged parchments that looked singed around the edge. 

“Students the charts you have before you have been especially selected for you. You may not share their contents with other members of this class. And before you ask, Ms. Barnes, you should also definitely not trade them amongst yourselves. You have two weeks. I will be available during our usually scheduled class time to assist with any combination you find too difficult, or if you are unsure on how to proceed. Consider this your final assignment.” The professor, with curly brown hair stuffed under a pointed hat, pointed a crooked finger to each student in the class. 

There was a moment of relative silence before everyone began refolding their charts and packing them away into their brown leather satchels. Hermione took a moment to glance over hers and saw that it was unusually complicated with a small patch of the pattern missing in the lower left corner. It reminded her of a celestial map, but to a sky she had never seen before. It would at least give her something to do between now and whenever she would end up at Grimmauld Place to retrieve the locket. The thing itself was a relic of the Slytherin family. Very valuable and beyond important. Hermione hadn’t thought much about how she was going to return to her Hogwarts, one life altering thing at a time she supposed, but had gently guessed that the locket must be a kind of Portkey to return her home. Lupin hadn’t mentioned a way of getting back. Hermione hoped there was a way home at all. 

She put her notebook back in her bag and joined the small procession of students leaving the classroom. Between it’s pages she had written about the witch. Written what she knew so far. 

_ What happened? _

_ Becomes D.E.  _

_ V disappears. _ _   
_ _ Neville’s mum and dad.  _

_ Azkaban. _

The ink felt heavy as she slid her bag onto her shoulder. Hermione felt responsible for the witch now. It was her own nature to care and nurture and protect where she could, but so far from home and without her two best friends to help her it seemed a monumental task. Her tasks now were to find and destroy the locket, and stop Bellatrix Black from turning into a sadistic monster. Hermione’s Arithmancy homework quivered on shaken legs in comparison. Hermione’s mind stirred over her task again and again, wondering where the moment to strike lurked. She would visit Grimmauld Place soon, and with it retrieve the locket. Hermione had to be sure she had done enough to prevent Bellatrix Lestrange from realising her own ill-fated destiny. The present, as she had known it, was a fine tapestry woven of multitudinous thread. One thread tucked and stitched down by many others - circling and looping until it was enmeshed with the weave. She wondered which thread held Bellatrix in place, and where it’s beginning lay. The thick and suffocating coverings of Voldemort were easy to identify at the end, at the Battle of Hogwarts, but here they slumbered deep within the fabric. Unseen, but their presence felt. How many strands could she remove before the whole thing came to pieces? 

Hermione rounded a corner and began to ascend the Grand Staircase towards the common room, waiting idly as the flights arranged themselves to reveal her path. She was going to meet Bellatrix after classes had finished, but for now she wanted to get back to her bed and look over her Arithmancy charts. The common room was all but deserted, aside from a few of the younger students exchanging notes for what looked like Charms class. The maw of the fireplace crackled softly and shrouded the room in a feeling of comfort and safety. Deciding against taking shelter on her bed, which was the place she felt safest, Hermione plonked herself down in one of the large armchairs by the fireplace and unrolled her charts. Sliding her shoes off and folding her legs neatly beneath herself Hermione allowed herself to sink back into the chair ever so slightly, embraced by the plush wings of the armchair either side of her head. It was a small rest amidst the most chaotic period of her entire life. She sighed and hoped once all this was over she could return to relative normalcy. No doubt Harry and Ron wanted to become Aurors, but there was still significant question in her mind where she would end up. Hermione had seen too many people and creatures suffer at the hands of wizards and witches who had chosen a darker path. She wanted to help, of course, but didn’t feel suited to the front line of battle. Not after all this.

Summoning over a nearby side table Hermione lay her charts down on the dark and shiny surface and began looking over them with more intent than she had done on her first glance in class. One of the parchments was distinctly older than the other, with a piece missing at it’s corner. The other seemed relatively new, but with deep fold lines across its surface as if it had been folded down to far too small of a size. Across both charts lay an interconnected series of points with golden lines running between three larger points that resembled stars. The patterns of the charts seemed mostly similar, but varied in a few key areas that Hermione already suspected held the solution to this assignment. She drew a table in her notebook, counting the number of intersections, counting the number of points and wrote them down. Between the two maps there was only a small numerical difference. Writing out the alphabet and numbering each letter she connected the cells of her table to their corresponding letter and wrote those down too. So far it was gibberish, an awkward jumble of letters that didn’t make sense, but she would continue counting and testing different pathways until she made sense of the two charts. Before long she heard the corridors leading to the common room murmur with life. Classes had finished for the morning. A few bleary eyed students made their way past where Hermione was sitting and eyed her Arithmancy homework warily. She offered them a sheepish smile in return and began to pack her things up. She wasn’t used to feeling like a stranger in the Gryffindor common room. All the students here knew her, or knew of her, but she had no idea who they were. It was as if every single day was the first day of school for her. So much uncertainty and unfamiliarity in a place that had felt like home to her so recently. 

Hermione made her way down to The Quad where she found Bellatrix sitting on the ground leaning back against a pillar. Her legs stretched out straight in front of her and every so often the toes of her shoes would click together absentmindedly. She seemed perfectly at ease and completely out of place simultaneously. The Gryffindor witch walked over to her and smiled brightly. She had made a mental note to always be as friendly as possible with Bellatrix. To become friends with her quickly, regardless of how she really felt. But today of all days, at a little after 11 in the morning Hermione Granger was genuinely relieved to see Bellatrix. She was a familiar face in an infinite ocean of strangers. The only face she knew from her own time. The homesickness she had learned to tolerate eased around the witch, and Hermione could feel herself opening up to the girl. Because that’s exactly what she was in this time, a girl. She was smart, and charming in her own way and Hermione started looking forward to their time together more and more. She would be lying if she said that simple fact didn’t muster the terrible weight of guilt to rest in her stomach. 

“Sorry about earlier, I couldn’t think of what to say and then I just.. Started babbling.” Hermione said, feeling the blush again climbing her body as she sat down next to the witch.

“What do you mean?” Bellatrix looked over to her with a furrowed brow.

“Oh uh.” Hermione stammered, “When we were talking about husbands and you said you’d prefer to look at girls instead of getting married-”

“I don’t recall saying that at all.” Bellatrix interrupted. Hermione’s stomach lurched in her throat, as if in third person she could see herself blundering wildly through this social interaction and it made her cringe. “Now I do recall mentioning  _ pretty  _ girls, I think you’ll find.” 

Hermione scoffed, suddenly feeling relieved but the telltale blush still clung to her cheeks. “Ugh. Don’t do that!” 

“Oh but it is ever so fun and we have Charms next and I felt with irrevocable certainty that if I didn’t have any fun before class I would perish.” Bellatrix feigned being faint and placed her hand on her head. Hermione smiled and shook her head. 

“Not a good morning then?” She asked.

“Dreadful. I’d much rather have spent it with you in Arithmancy. Though I’m sure we’re both aware Divination is the far superior future predicting tool.” Bellatrix was exceedingly confident all the time, Hermione wondered if she ever grew tired of it - perhaps concluding the masquerade behind closed doors. It was much easier to carry on in the Black family if you were emotionally untouchable. But that kind of repression must take a toll. It would have to. Perhaps it was to blame partially for who Bellatrix Lestrange became. 

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Please. Divination is just sitting around drinking too much tea and looking for death omens in food scraps. You wouldn’t go seeking life advice from a plate of toast, you’d be positively loony.” 

Bellatrix’s face became solemn and she looked at Hermione with complete conviction and concern wrought across her youthful features. “I’ll have you know that marmalade toast prophecy was of great comfort to me during my hour of need.” 

Hermione burst out laughing, followed soon after by Bellatrix. The young Slytherin was so unexpectedly funny. In combination with her signature way of putting sentences together Bellatrix was very easy to be around. Hermione never felt like she had to fill dead air, or come up with something to talk about, conversation flowed with such ease she sometimes forgot who she was talking to. It was something that was beginning to occur with more and more frequency. The division between the two versions of the same Bellatrix becoming more defined and separate. Hermione thought that Ron and Harry would get along with her too, if this girl had attended Hogwarts with them. A refreshing change from that snivelling git Malfoy. She supposed that if Harry had been sent back instead of her he would have killed Bellatrix on sight. 

“How was Arithmancy anyway?” Bellatrix asked.

“Quite short really, we were given our final assignments before the N.E.W.T.s. We have to interpret personalised charts.” Hermione said cheerfully, gazing out over The Quad. 

“Have you solved it already?” 

Hermione smiled and turned to Bellatrix. “Not yet. I’ve come up with some gibberish but nothing revealing. We have two weeks to solve them so I’m not worried. I might work on it at the library this evening. Maybe you can have a look and see what you think? We were told not to share them with other students in the class, but I suspect showing you will be fine.” 

“You’re playing a dangerous game Granger.” Bellatrix held up both her hands and shirked all responsibility, making a clear effort to seem as over the top as possible. 

“You have no idea.” Hermione smirked. There was no possible way for Bellatrix to know who Hermione really was, and what she was doing at Hogwarts. Hiding in plain sight, destroying the Dark Lord, and quite literally saving Bellatrix Black’s life. 


	10. The Library

Later that evening, after dinner had been served in the Great Hall, Hermione was on her way to the library. This time the two of them sat at the Slytherin table. Initially hesitant, Hermione waved her off and went to sit with her fellow Gryffindors. Though after some gentle convincing she relented and sat on the opposite side of the hall. It was strange seeing the room from the other side. A change in perspective. She recalled how Malfoy had sat and scowled at her, Ron, and Harry. From this perspective now she saw how ridiculous he was. However nonchalant he may have appeared the Slytherin boy most definitely would have had to crane his neck awkwardly, position himself between students strategically to see between their shoulders, and monitor the trio upon entrance to the Hall to decide his own seat. He resented Harry so much all the way through. Hermione recalled his sunken features at the Battle of Hogwarts. How hollow his eyes looked, how tired, and desperate, he seemed. He had tumbled so far from the confident little boy who used to slick his hair back to look like his father - Lucius, that bumbling idiot. 

Hermione walked through the entrance of the library and looked around for an open table. There were a few groups of students studying, a few reading quietly, and a free table towards the back by the windows. She sat down and unpacked her bag. The library itself hadn’t changed much in the years before her time, a few books missing from the shelves that were published after the First Wizarding War, and the magical history section looked particularly different. It was always nice to come here. The familiar smells of old parchment and leather bound tomes mingling gently in the air and forming their own particular scent. The smell of inkwells wafting into the evening air. Outside the sky was spattered with a crimson and violet glow as the sun sunk below the horizon. In the distance Hermione saw birds circling and diving over the Forbidden Forest. The musty smell of the fetid earth calling her back to the unknowable danger within those trees. Like enormous bars they rose out of the earth and obscured all light. The further in you went the darker it got. Eternal night shared amongst all the magical creatures that dwelled there. 

She had made no progress on either of her charts. Her notebook now filled with several pages of ciphers and keys consisting mostly of numbers and crossed out letters. Surely Arithmancy hadn’t changed that much in the handful of years between this Hogwarts and her own. A shard of realisation formed in her then, cold and obvious. She  _ wasn’t _ from this time. She  _ wasn’t _ from this Hogwarts. Perhaps in being transported back so far she had made her own kind of trace, the kind of anomaly that would obscure the gentle art of Arithmancy. The kind of obstruction that would tangle the threads of her own tapestry and turn it dark. Indecipherable. Hermione sighed and closed her notebook. So much about  _ this _ was so desperately unknown to her. How did she know if any of it was correct? Was she supposed to change Bellatrix? Was she supposed to kill her instead of befriending her? After all, there were two definite ways to prevent her ever committing the awful things she had done. Hermione felt herself waver. Felt herself become thin and insubstantial. Felt as if a wayward breeze from across the lake could turn her to a thousand particles and all would be dissolved in ash. Leaning back in her chair Hermione again looked out the window and watched for a time as the colours strewn across the sky began to shift and fade with the sinking sun. She was running out of time. The obstruction between Hermione and her Arithmancy homework swelled and grew. No longer just a hindrance to solving her charts, but a huge and insurmountable mountainscape. While the magic that had sent her back made some concessions with altering the memories of her cohort, it seemed that something deeper had noticed her intrusion. She stuck out like a sore thumb, swollen and flushed. And what would happen when she returned, nevermind if she actually could return or not, would Bellatrix suddenly be flooded with new memories of spending all this time with Hermione or would she simply forget? Either conclusion seemed awful and impossible to face. How could she again face the monster of Bellatrix Lestrange knowing all that she did now? 

She felt the gentle tug of sorrow at the back of her throat. Tears formed at the sides of her eyes. Breathing deep she blinked them away. She couldn’t break, not yet. It felt like an eternity since she had been able to rest. To rest without task. To wake knowing the whole day was hers to do with as she saw fit. Hermione had long ago learned to shut off the protests of her own body. Thirst, hunger, pain. None of it mattered in face of what the three of them were tasked with. When this was all done, she decided then, if she had not already died or been killed she would rest. Go somewhere. Read books for leisure rather than desperate life-or-death need of a solution. She rubbed the back of her neck, turning to the central corridor when she heard footsteps approaching. It was Bellatrix. 

“Hey.” Hermione said wearily. 

“Hellooo,” the Slytherin replied in a sing-song voice. Bellatrix, for all her social oddities, was rather lyrical. She stopped a step short of the table when she saw Hermione’s red and glossy tell-tale eyes. “Oh dear, what’s happened? Death omen in your Arithmancy homework? Is it about me, am I going to marry someone ugly? Let me see.” Bellatrix sat next to Hermione and looked attentively over the charts. Her brow furrowed deeply as she made a series of thoughtful noises. “Hmm. Yes. It’s just as I thought, Hermione. Nonsense. All of it.” 

Hermione laughed gently and wiped her eyes. “I don’t know why I can’t solve it - I feel like I’m missing something.” 

“I think you’re missing that Arithmancy is the most boring and convoluted series of mathematical breadcrumbs you could choose to study for your N.E.W.T.s.” Bellatrix pushed the charts away from herself and turned to face Hermione. “Are you okay?” 

Hermione sighed. “You know, I’m not sure. I’m so tired.” 

“Why don’t we just leave all this for tonight, you can come and see the Slytherin common room and oogle the first years and I’ll tell you embarrassing things about them.” Bellatrix reached over and folded Hermione’s nonsensical charts for her and stacked them neatly with her notebook. Hermione watched as the dexterous fingers navigated their way through the task with ease and it was then she noticed the witch’s bare forearm. Bellatrix typically wore her sleeves down, but at some point in their encounter that Hermione hadn’t noticed she had swept them up to just below her elbow. The dark stain of Voldemort’s mark no longer present. It made Hermione feel sick to imagine how the marks were applied. At how they throbbed and pulsed when the Dark Lord drew his followers to his side. At how it must have positively vibrated that night when Bellatrix escaped Azkaban. There was no doubt whether Bellatrix Lestrange’s Dark Mark was her most prized possession. Hermione wondered how far she would have gone to keep it, what the sadistic witch would have done to please her Lord, no matter what he asked. At some point the snake-like shadow of a wizard replaced Bellatrix’s family as the most important part of her life. Her priorities skewed decisively towards Voldemort. There had to be friction, trauma, neglect. Something pushed her away and towards Voldemort. Perhaps Andromeda being cast out had a larger impact on Bellatrix than she would ever let on. Her sister was abandoned by the family for falling in love with a Muggle-born wizard. 

“I’d like that.” Hermione packed her things away into her satchel and followed Bellatrix out of the library. In every moment her mind ticked with correlation and causation for Bellatrix Lestrange’s legacy. But she couldn’t rest. Lest some unseen, unspoken detail passed her by. The archstone of it all. Hermione may only have one chance to pluck it from its essential resting place, and she couldn’t miss it. Not for anything. Vigilance above herself. 

They walked in silence to the Slytherin dungeons, Hermione had never been to them. If not for that utter disaster with the Polyjuice Potion she would have seen inside with Harry and Ron. As they sunk below the ground level of Hogwarts the air became thicker as it did inside the potions classrooms. She supposed all the time that the humidity was a result of the constantly bubbling cauldrons and had trouble shaking the association. The two witches stopped in front of a stone door adorned with a large snake. 

“You’ll have to cover your ears.” Bellatrix turned to Hermione, gestured to her own ears and rolled her eyes.

Hermione covered her ears and smiled cautiously. She saw as Bellatrix’s lips wrapped themselves around a few words before the whole wall began to shift and move. Cobblestones ground against each other, the vibration travelling through the ground and up her legs, and a long corridor was slowly revealed brick by brick. It couldn’t have been more different to the Gryffindor entrance. Bellatrix gave Hermione a thumbs up and she uncovered her ears. 

“Sorry about that, they don’t like anyone knowing the password. Oh and um- Would you mind taking off your tie and sweater? Just that if anyone sees you in here in maroon and gold we might both be tossed into the lake, usually I wouldn’t mind but I don’t much fancy drying my hair.” Somehow Bellatrix’s tone was completely serious. 

Hermione hesitated for a moment before she began quickly loosening the knot around her neck, slipping the tie over her head. She lifted the hem of her sweater up and over her head also, peeling the garment off her arms. Hermione waved her wand at the pile of discarded clothes, shrinking them down to size, and tucked them into her satchel. She looked back to Bellatrix who had turned a gentle shade of pink. “Ready.” 

The two witches walked down the long corridor toward a wide opening where the common room lay. It was a large room with stone walls, a crackling fireplace, and large, dark green-ish blue windows set deep in the masonry facade. Hermione remembered a moment later that the Slytherin common room faces into The Great Lake. The gentle rumblings of water moving outside the panes of glass echoed around the chamber. The ambience was quite nice and reminded Hermione of that gentle comfortable feeling of sleeping during a rainstorm, even if the decor was a little severe compared with the Gryffindor common room. There were a few students sitting around at tables, but for the most part it was deserted. No one seemed to notice Hermione’s presence, and if they had they certainly didn’t care. 

Bellatrix walked ahead and took a seat at one of the leather sofas positioned in front of the fire. Hermione followed and placed herself between Bellatrix and the arm of the chair, drawing her legs up underneath herself. Without turning her head the Slytherin witch leaned in closer to Hermione and spoke softly, and with the proximity came a gentle swell of the scent of violets. 

“That boy sitting at the table is Edwin Flint. A distant relation. As are all Pure-blood families in some way. It’s a year-round family reunion here. Anyway, in first year he tried to show off by producing a patronus in the common room - you know because his older brother was in 7th year at the time - and the whole spell ended up backfiring and instead of a patronus coming out the  _ end _ of his wand it all shot backwards and made him throw up all over his Potions books.” Bellatrix mimed vomiting. It made Hermione laugh. 

“Oh no that’s awful. That poor boy.” Hermione glanced cautiously at him over the back of the sofa and saw how his posture had stiffened somewhat. Never ones to react to idle gossip Slytherins kept face like it was a N.E.W.T.s subject. Of course they would all receive outstanding grades for it. 

“Yeah, I don’t think anyone sat next to him all year after that. Least he bloody well cleaned his Potions books afterwards.” Bellatrix feigned disgust and turned to face Hermione, the flicker of orange light from the fire skittering across the side of her face. “Now, why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

For a moment Hermione’s heart sunk in her chest. Her mind stirred to life with a lurch of adrenaline. The stress of maintaining a facade was wearing thin on her, and like the huge glass panes keeping the common room from being flooded, a crack of any size would prove disastrous. She sighed and gently pressed her eyes closed, reminding herself that she was safe. There was no way the Slytherin could know, and no way she did know. Hermione repeated this over and again in her head before opening her eyes and looking at Bellatrix, who had a look of concern played across her features. “I think I’m just tired. Or something. Having trouble feeling like there’s an end in sight, you know?” Hermione, without the ever restorative aide of her two best friends, was feeling the suffocating grip of fatigue. It crept in at the edges of every moment and made her mind dull. She needed reaffirmation that it would work out and be okay - Harry was always ready to go all in on any plan, no matter how slim the chances of success were. She had always been more reserved, cautious. Hesitant to take the leap. She wondered if Bellatrix could offer her any comfort without knowing the full story. 

“Mmm. I understand. Requirement is a terrible thing.” Bellatrix spoke earnestly dropping, for a moment it seemed, her usual confident bravado. This was her, the real Bellatrix Black.

Something clicked in Hermione. A cog in the machine of human connection. Bellatrix  _ did _ understand. Regardless of the details. Coming back, finding the locket, changing this girl was a requirement. It was a  _ requirement _ of winning the war against Voldemort. There was no question of  _ if _ Hermione would accomplish her mission, fulfill the prophecy, and save her friends. It was a requirement of living. As vital as air. To give up, to fail, was certain death. “I like that you used the word requirement, not obligation.” Hermione said at last. 

“Obligation implies choice I think, there’s no shirking requirements.” Bellatrix said, matter of fact-ly, as if the thought had occurred to her a thousand times before. 

“Is that how it is with your family?” She asked, eyes resting on a crackling log in the fireplace. 

“Yes.” With no deflection or air of charm Bellatrix answered, Hermoine felt the dread seeping out of the witch. 

“Even though you’re..” She asked, not quite sure how to phrase it without sounding awkward, but inevitably coming off that way anyway.

“Yes. It’s all about continuing the Pure-blood line so my sisters and I can have children like Edwin over there vomiting all over himself out of hubris. I think I’d rather die than have children. I mean... not to be hyperbolic about it all.” Bellatrix shrugged and ruffled her fingers through her dark hair. It sounded like she had experienced the argument a thousand times over. She was resigned to it by now. Knew she had to get married. Hermione thought bitterly to Rodolphus Lestrange. She already detested him from one meeting, the seething hatred that grew in Bellatrix Lestrange over the years would be enough to flatten mountains to piles of rubble. Hermione hated him too. Hated him for taking this vibrant young witch who smelled faintly of violets and letting her rot and fester and truly take on the Lestrange mantle. Bellatrix was too good for him. 

“Have you thought about running away?” Hermione asked.

“From Druella Black? You’ve clearly never met my mother.” 

The covert Gryffindor cringed inwardly as she recalled the shrieking portrait of Druella Black hung on the wall in Grimmauld Place. Her shrill and hateful voice splitting the foundations of the house. “Is she that bad?” Hermione knew already, but she wanted Bellatrix to keep talking. 

“Exceptionally. Sometimes she gets so angry I wonder if her head is going to swell up and explode. It would probably be a relief for her honestly.” Bellatrix lifted her hands to either side of her head and mimicked an explosion sound. 

“There must be some way to change it. ” Hermione mused. The constant sound of water rolling outside the window was soothing, and she felt her body relaxing into the arm of the sofa. 

“I think you’re very important Hermoine, you can always talk to me if you need to. Or if you just want more stories Mr. Finch over there.” Bellatrix smiled a broad and genuine smile, revealing her healthy teeth. Hermione was always looking at people’s teeth. Sometimes she wondered if becoming a dentist was a genetic predisposition. 

It surprised her how empathetic Bellatrix was. Hermione always imagined being able to cast Unforgivable Curses came with a certain kind of personality that was unconcerned with the feelings and misfortune of others. To torture and kill while understanding the pain the witch was inflicting on her foes was incomprehensible. Reprehensible. She wondered whether the callousness of her future actions was an indicator of her own inner turmoil. Confined, repressed, and curated at every moment. More and more Bellatrix Lestrange seemed to be an amalgamation of desperation to fit in and gain approval from all her perceived superiors. To gain approval from herself for things the witch knew she hated, or had no interest in doing. It was how she coped, Hermione supposed. No wonder she ended up in Azkaban insane and alone. 

“I think you’re important too.” Hermione said. Important to the survival of witches and wizards everywhere, important to Voldemort as his right-hand lieutenant. Important to her mother for marriage and children. Important to her sisters to hold back the fury of their parents. And now, sitting in the glow of a dying fireplace in the Slytherin common room, important to Hermione. And it was the truth. 


	11. The Notebook

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Here's a new chapter for you to enjoy. I hope wherever you are in the world you're staying safe and healthy. <3 Luv ya.

“Do you think your Arithmancy homework is about me?” Bellatrix added, suddenly.

Hermione found herself lazily gazing into the embers of the fireplace and felt her brow furrow. She hadn’t thought it. She hadn’t even considered it. “Uh- I hadn’t really thought about it to be honest. Do you think it might be?”

Bellatrix sat forward on the sofa with her elbows resting on her knees, and her square jaw resting atop her hands. She swayed gently while too gazing into the fireplace. The hot embers flickered with heat in unison as some unseen draught of air moved over them. Hermione had always loved fireplaces. And campfires. The smell of smoke would cling to her hair for days afterward and all at once the world seemed to still when she sat with attention to the coals. 

“Well, you’ve tried everything else right? And you and I, we’ve become quite good friends lately. Maybe that’s it - one chart for you and one chart for me.” Bellatrix shrugged and turned to face Hermione.

The covert Gryffindor paused a moment and considered. She supposed it could be the case - one chart for each of them. She supposed with a sharp rush of sorrow through her core that they could also be about Harry and Ron. Hermione wondered how much the deep undertow of magical trace had affected the charts. How much her own misplacement would show. “Maybe you’re right. To be honest I’m not certain of anything. I haven’t been able to make sense of either of them independently. I’ve not even been looking for specifics, just something that makes sense.” 

“It’s either that or your professor is trying to drive you all to desperate madness with unsolvable juicy tidbits. Here, get your charts out and we’ll have a go of it.” Bellatrix seemed spurred on by a fresh wave of enthusiasm. Hermione suspected it was to mask the vulnerabilities the other witch became painfully aware of at the discussion of her own family. If everything seemed fine on the outside, then everything must be fine on the inside. She winced inwardly imagining the seeping poison running from the inside out like a terrible and unending geyser of misery when Bellatrix Black finally broke. The sorrow, the anger, the pain, it all had to go somewhere. She couldn’t keep it bottled and controlled indefinitely. 

Bellatrix shifted on the sofa and pulled a dark wooden coffee table closer towards them both. Hermione watched as the thick ropes of muscle in the Slytherin’s forearms flexed and tensed with effort as she dragged the heavy wooden furniture. Hermione felt something stir in herself looking at the dark witch. She seemed to be brimming with life and vitality but at every moment she seemed under threat from withering, from madness, from insanity and the filthy clutches of the Dark Lord. As if at any second the castle of Bellatrix Black would tumble into the ashes of the fireplace and in its stead Bellatrix Lestrange would rise terrible and anew. Hermione wondered whether the young witch could feel the building paradox within herself. If she could feel the tug. The swallowing depth of paradox. 

Hermione was completely uninterested at looking at the charts. She had looked at them for hours. Initially thinking it would be a quick solution, initially thinking they would be easy to solve. But her first glance had turned into her second, and her third. Her first attempt turned into her second, and her third. She felt her confidence and motivation slipping. Not spurred on by the challenge but weakened. Fatigued. Listless. Her motivation for them came in waves. Spurred on by success in another class she would return and be repelled soon after. As the tides rose and fell with the moon so too did Hermione’s will in all things. 

She leaned forward towards the low, solid table and drew the charts out of her satchel. Bellatrix took the crinkling sheets of parchment and laid them out next to each other. Hermione watched the witch as she rotated the maps and tried to make the patterns line up. “Does Arithmancy quite like symmetry? These two look very similar when you lay them out like this.” Bellatrix indicated towards two areas that seemed to match up, and placed her hands flat on another area to cover it up. “I mean if you just ignore this bit. Why don’t we just cut that part off and then we won’t have to worry about it?” Hermione burst out laughing. 

“You can’t just cut the bits off that don’t fit Bellatrix.” 

“Maybe that’s the solution? Maybe I’ve just cracked it for your whole class.” The Slytherin made a pretend pair of scissors out of her fingers and mimed cutting through the parchment. 

“I’m quite certain that the professor would definitely not want us cutting up our final assignment. Imagine if your potions homework was to spill ingredients everywhere.”

“I think you’re forgetting what First Year Potions is like Hermione, we need to think outside of the box here if we’re ever to make it out of this school.” Bellatrix took hold of Hermione’s notebook and began flipping through the pages. 

Hermione’s heart lurched like a bolt of lightning coursing through a tree. All at once her limbs came to life with a crackle of electricity that made her feel nauseous. She reached out and covered Bellatrix’s hands with her own, stopping the girl from exposing any more pages to her eye. Beneath the palms of her hands Hermione could feel the warm and boney digits flex and release. Bellatrix let go of the book almost instantly, but Hermione didn’t let go of the Slytherin’s hands. The notebook fell deftly between them as the Gryffindor looked over the unexpected joining. She could hardly recall the last time someone held her hand. Or the last time she held someone else’s. 

“Sorry I didn’t mean to uh-” Bellatrix’s words caught in her throat and Hermione felt horribly guilty. 

Hermione released her grip on the girl’s hands and picked up the book, thumbing the pages open to where she had attempted to decode the charts. “No, no. I’m sorry. Serves me right for having all my embarrassing secrets in the same book as my schoolwork.”

Bellatrix raised an eyebrow and stifled a laugh behind her own hand before replying in the most serious tone she could muster. “You definitely shouldn’t have told me that. Now I’ll be daydreaming about what’s in there. It must be something good.” 

Hermione made an apologetic expression, somewhere between a wince and look of sympathy. She felt dreadful. Aggressive. She felt all too harsh and stupid. She was stupid for writing all her thoughts in one book, stupid to have not charmed her secrets away. Stupid for reacting how she did. So obvious and completely out of proportion. Her mouth turned dry at the thought of Bellatrix imagining what she had written in her notebook. The extremity of it. The absolute and indelible truth written well before it came to pass. The names of Bellatrix’s family. Details about the first Wizarding War, and the outcome of the second. Horcruxes. Azkaban. Everything. Hermione was tired. Her surface all but worn away. Her aching, devastated, and resurrected core thrumming with the possibility that every second was a moment lost to the Dark Lord. Every second a possibility for victory, or defeat, and she had been painfully aware of each single moment passing. But she was slipping, and moments had begun slipping her by. Her vigilance wavering. 

“Sorry. I hope you don’t think I’m awful.” Hermione offered. 

Bellatrix paused for a moment and Hermione could see her gaze shifting across her face, lingering for a moment on one eye, and then the next. Lingering on her mouth, her barely visible freckles, and back up again. “No, not at all.” Bellatrix said, finally. 

Hermione slid her open notebook onto the coffee table, and began pointing out what she had tried already to the other witch. There were several pages of overlapping geometric designs with annotated intersections, crossed out numbers, and many different cyphers linked and unlinked with scribbled-out lines. “Here’s what I’ve tried already - it’s kind of all over the place.” 

Bellatrix leaned forward and looked over the pages, her eyebrows furrowing together while she tapped her index finger against her bottom lip. “That is a lot of Arithmancy. No wonder you’re slipping slowly into madness.” 

Hermione laughed. “I am not slipping into madness, I just can’t work out the first step.” 

“I’ll miss you when they cart you off to St. Mungos, I hear they have a whole ward for Arithmancy-induced-psychosis.” 

It was surprising how reassuring and calming Bellatrix was. How soothing her comments, how her jokes never failed to make Hermione laugh. And how unexpected her charm was, unmarred by the claws of Azkaban. There was an ease to her which the young Gryffindor found profoundly settling. It reminded her of visiting Hogsmeade with Harry and Ron, sitting around a table of their own near the mouth of a fireplace drinking Butterbeer and talking about classes. 

Bellatrix continued shuffling and rotating the charts, folding a piece back here, and overlapping the parchments there, and with purpose it seemed. The Slytherin witch drew her wand from her pocket and pointed it at the folded, crumpled charts. The gentle sound of rustling paper filled the room and the bundle of parchment seemed to move on it’s own. Hermione watched, perplexed, as the form shivered once or twice and began churning awkwardly, as if constrained by the stiffness of the parchment itself. Before long a wing, unmistakable in its shape, emerged and was followed quickly by another. A small head appeared suddenly - round and coming together at the front in a small beak. Hermoine’s former Arithmancy homework flapped its wings with the sound of crumpling parchment and took off from the table. Gently it flew around the dimly lit common room and came to perch on the chandelier that hung from the centre of the ceiling. 

“There you go, assignment complete.” Bellatrix sighed loudly and leaned back into the sofa, pleased obviously with herself. 

“I hope you’re good at Transfiguration Bellatrix, I need that assignment to be unchanged when I get it back.” Hermione leaned back into the sofa too, weary from the day. 

“Oh, I’m good at everything.” 


	12. Valerian Flowers

By the time Hermione had managed to coax her Arithmancy homework down from the ceiling the embers in the fireplace had reclined to a dull, red glow. Bellatrix had raised her hands above her head and proclaimed that  _ it's a wild animal, I’m not responsible for whether it comes back down here or not!  _ Eventually the dark witch had surrendered and gestured with her wand in tight circles and a flourish that drew the papery avian down from the chandelier where it landed on the table with an audible crinkle. Hermione watched as the bird unfolded itself, filling the room with the sound of rustling parchment, until there was no trace of the creature except for a small, fresh crease in the middle of both charts. 

“Bella- Bellatrix,” Hermione caught herself shortening the other witch’s name at the last second, unsure how the other witch would feel about it. It seemed strange, and to have come out of nowhere. Hermione had never thought of her as just  _ Bella _ before. It was unmistakable - a term of endearment for a future Death Eater no less. For a small tangential second she wondered what pet names Draco had attracted from his mother over the years, before she continued. “..Bellatrix, thank you for bringing my homework down from the ceiling.” 

The young Slytherin paused a moment and smiled. “You can call me Bella if you like, it’s what my sisters call me anyway. Just don’t let my mother hear you say it, she says it sounds common and boring when it’s shortened. She goes on about how she spent so long picking out the perfect name for her first-born daughter, something to bring honour to the Black name, something you could pin a future on and that she  _ certainly didn’t name me something as coarse as Bella. _ I guess you could say she’s a tad neurotic about the whole thing.” Here Bellatrix’s brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed as she looked thoughtfully into the fireplace, apparently recalling a myriad of similar events including Druella Black. 

Hermione smiled and Bellatrix.. Bella. It was as if in being granted a new name she had suddenly shifted to another person entirely. No longer bound by her former and heavy laden moniker. To reconcile the differences between the two witches she knew as Bellatrix suddenly felt lighter, unburdened. Clear. “Thank you.” 

“You don’t have to say thank you for that, love.” Bellatrix shook her head and smiled. “Anyway, it’s almost 10, would you like me to walk you back to the common room? Sorry we couldn’t make any progress on this Arithmancy nightmare you’ve brought with you. How are you feeling? You seem to have picked up a bit since I found you.” 

“Much better. Definitely. I think I just need a good night of sleep and I’ll come back to it in the morning.” Hermione began packing up her things scattered across the table in front of them. 

Bellatrix made a look of realisation, suddenly rising from the couch and gesturing excitedly for Herminoe to follow. The Gryffindor stood and readjusted her shirt and pants, feeling the radiant warmth of the fireplace falling off her bones like shed autumn leaves. The stone archway of the common room gave way to a short corridor with another chamber at the end of it. Hermione watched as Bellatrix’s dark curls bounced gently as she walked. They came to a hexagonal room with worn stone bricks lining the walls, adorned with intricate carvings of snakes and pillars with gargoyles perched on top of them. There were two huge windows that gave a turquoise view into the lake, which by now had grown darker - lit only by the moon above. The gentle and primal sound of water churning was quieter here than in the common room, most likely charmed that way to help Slytherin students sleep better. Bellatrix walked to a neatly made four-poster bed against the far wall of the room, with black velvet curtains draped along the thin metal bars that ran between the posts. The delicate fabric lashed to the dark wooden posts with thin silver thread that glimmered gently in the reflection of the moonlit water. 

“Here, have a seat.” Bellatrix gestured to an open spot on the bed. Hermione sat down and lost her balance, momentarily tipping backwards before catching herself with her hands. Bellatrix’s bed was unbelievably soft. Almost obscenely so. 

“Ugh,” Hermione said as she grunted with effort shuffling out of the maw of the bed and perching more safely on the edge. “How do you get out of this thing in the morning?” 

Bellatrix let loose a throaty laugh. “Honestly sometimes it takes a lot of will power.” 

The Slytherin witch smiled at Hermione and began rustling through the large oaken chest next to the bed. Hermione found herself idly looking around at Bellatrix’s bed, taking in all the small and mundane details that every lived-in bedroom had. The slightly crumpled pillow - a divet forming where the sleeper’s head would habitually rest. The ever so gently askew sheet drawn up and folded at the top of the mattress. The gentle aroma of clean linens and Bellatrix mingling delicately in the quiet air, punctuated only by Bellatrix’s methodical sifting. Hermione found herself drawing in deep and slow breaths through her nose to experience as much of the comforting scent as she could - she imagined a scent like this would rise with gentle evervescence from a cauldron filled with Amortentia. She felt still, and calm, and paid only gentle attention to the slowing of her thoughts and the quieting of her mind as she breathed in more deeply the scent. It smelled like violets. Like a luminous patch of the flower sheltered from midnight rains. Triumphant. Subversive. Powerful. Like the pull of an ocean tide. It felt useless to struggle against. She felt the scent seep into her bones. Felt it fill her every space. Rushing through her body to nestle in the tips of her fingers where it felt warm and almost alive. 

“Sorry, won’t be too much longer. I know the ruddy thing is in here somewhere…” Bellatrix had begun scooping armfulls of books and placing them on the floor. The chest had been charmed, obviously. The Slytherin sat on the floor surrounded by piles of books - easily enough for an entire bookcase in the library. “Oh thank goodness, here it is.” Bellatrix stood, drew her wand from her pocket and waved it, sending all the misplaced books back into their innumerably large container. 

Hermione turned to Bellatrix, shaking the aromatic grip she found herself in and rousing from her waking slumber. She let her eyes lazily move over the witch, feeling more relaxed than she had felt in a long time. She felt safe, orderly, and some other emotion that bubbled gently she couldn’t quite name. Hermione felt her body soften. Her shoulders sagged and she released a breath she didn’t realise she had been holding. In that stillness and quiet there was only herself and Bellatrix Black, who was fiddling with a small glass vial she had drawn out of the chest. It was as if the pair of them sat unknowingly in the centre of a maelstrom. Around them the fabric of reality and time was crumpled and frayed, and far beyond that the Wizarding World was collapsing under the terrible weight of the Dark Lord. But the stillness here was exceptional. 

Bellatrix sat down next to her on the bed and held out her hand. In her palm was a small pile of dried plants with what looked like small white petals in clusters. It had a gentle floral fragrance that clouded the clarity of the smell of Bellatrix’s bed. Hermione noticed the absence of it immediately. Like she had plunged into the icy lake outside and the cold seeped into her body at every exposed window of skin. 

“Here, take this with you up to bed and drink it with some water. It’ll help you sleep.” Bellatrix swept the small pile of dried flowers into a small vial and handed it to Hermione. The Gryffindor recognised it immediately as Valerian. She recalled the fresh scent the blooms gave off in Potions class the first time they had used them to make Sleeping Draught. A simple but very potent potion if made correctly. Hermione wondered at what other potion ingredients Bellatrix had secreted away in her bedside chest and what their applications might be. She wondered if the heady, intoxicating aroma around the Slytherin’s sleeping quarters had anything to do with the hidden stockpile of herbs and flowers. 

Hermione smiled as she tucked the small vial into her satchel. “Why do you have Valerian in your trunk Bella?” 

Bellatrix shrugged and looked smug. “Sometimes I can’t sleep.” 

She wondered how Bellatrix would have longed for Valerian in Azkaban. Anything to slumber away the torturous days and nights in the middle of the ocean in that stone prison. She imagined how it’s fragrance would have cut through the fetid, damp, and salty smell. Though truthfully the more Hermione’s thoughts lingered on it Valerian by then would have been far, far down Bellatrix Lestrange’s list of priorities. 

“Come on,” the Slytherin witch added, “we had better get you back. You can’t imagine how ridiculous the prefects are here.” 


	13. Slumber

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thank you so much for all your comments and kudos, I super duper appreciate them. Here's a lil update for you to enjoy!
> 
> p.s. If you're looking for some music to listen to while reading/writing shout out to Hannibal Jacobs on Spotify for creating an awesome Bellamione playlist! Seriously, go listen.

Hermione followed behind Bellatrix with a heavy step. The fatigue of the day settled to rest in the pads of her feet, making her legs feel impossibly heavy. There was such an ease to Bellatrix, such an unexpected air of calm fell off the witch at every expelled breath, and every smooth and measured movement of her muscles. It made Hermione feel safe. Her fatigue manifested as it may have done when she was a child, held close in the arms of her father as he carried her tiny sleeping form to her bedroom. Instead of the sickening wall of adrenaline that had masked her yearning for rest while Harry, Ron, and herself had hidden from snatchers for months in the wild and overgrown countryside. Bellatrix stopped walking and turned to Hermione, the two witches stood at the base of the Great Staircase. 

“Alright, I’m not going to climb that thing so I’ll let you go here. Imagine having to climb that thing every day.” Here Bellatrix raised her hand into the air and mimed with her fingers walking up the stairs. “It’s a wonder Gryffindors don’t have grotesquely muscular thighs. Or maybe they do? I don’t think I ever recall seeing a Gryffindor’s real legs. Hey maybe that’s the solution to your chart? Two charts - two indecipherably muscly thighs.” 

Hermione laughed. “How do you think these things up Bella?” 

Replacing her hand by her side Bellatrix shrugged and gazed up at the ever shifting stone flights. “It’s just more fun like that. Everything is a possibility until it isn’t.” 

Hermione looked at Bellatrix for a moment, feeling her brows furrow. She wasn’t wrong. In fact, she was far from wrong. Everything was a possibility because she  _ knew _ what was going to happen. Hermione knew all the details of the Dark Lord’s uprising. His followers. His plans. She knew what he was going to do before he did. And here now before the beginning of it all everything was a possibility. The end of it all and a new beginning simultaneously. Died and sent back in time in the same instance. A rush of adrenaline surged through her system, dissolving at once the cobwebs of fatigue that had formed in her bones.  _ That was it.  _ Everything was possible because it hadn’t happened yet. Hermione recalled suddenly the Time Room in the Department of Mysteries, and how she watched the cycle of life and death repeat end on end. Like the distant primordial call of the ocean tides the phoenix rose again, and again. From ash. To life. 

“You’re very reassuring, Bella.” Hermione simply said, giving away nothing of her own internal revelation at the other girl’s words. Obviously being caught off guard Bellatrix looked at Hermione with confusion etched across her delicate features. Her eyebrows creased together and the Gryffindor could see her gaze shifting across her own face searching for some clue of context. Instead of waiting for a reply Hermione began walking up the stairs and away from Bellatrix. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Bella. Thank you for everything tonight, really. I definitely needed a break.” A smile broke out across her face and she watched as Bellatrix began smiling back. 

“Sleep well, ‘mione.” Bellatrix waved happily and started on her walk back to the Slytherin common room, leaving Hermione to navigate up the ever shifting stairs and into bed. A gentle warmth crept through her core at the abbreviation of her own name. Somehow the moniker had taken on all the awkward charm of Ron, and reminded her of their friendship that so often teetered between best friends and something more. 

As she rose up the flights of stairs Hermione felt herself ascending through a thick layer of cloud. It had all become clear to her now, and at once it had all become opaque. There was no one path that was correct, no one solution to the problem. Reflected back again and again like an inescapable hall of mirrors were the infinite possibilities for destroying Voldemort. She could do as she wished, it was her will and resilience alone that would vanquish that hideous darkness. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief and felt her shoulders relax and sink. Hermione ascended the remaining stairs toward the Gryffindor common room with ease, her legs recalling the journey she had made countless times and carrying out their duty unprompted. 

When Hermione reached her bed she shrugged off her bag, retrieved her shrunken clothes from her pockets, restored them to their normal size, and put them away in her trunk. Drawing the small glass vial of Valerian flowers from her other pocket. Opening the vial carefully she emptied the contents into the palm of her hand. Amongst the small pile of dried plant matter was a whole and perfectly preserved flower. A tiny cluster of brilliant white petals shon out to Hermione and delicately she reached in and plucked it out. With a quick flick of her wand the empty goblet on her bedside filled with clear, sparkling water. Gently she tipped the rest of the dried Valerian into the liquid and watched a moment as it seemed to twist and shift back to vitality as it absorbed the water. Hermione reached into her bag and drew out her notebook and placed the flower between two unused pages, waved her wand again, and watched with gentle satisfaction as the delicate bloom merged itself with the paper and became embedded. Preserved. She wondered whether when this was all over if she would be able to take her notebook back with her - if she could secret it away somewhere in the castle where it would lay in wait for her to retrieve it. More than most Hermione knew of just how many secrets Hogwarts held tight within its walls and deep, deep beneath the stone floors of the Great Hall. It should welcome one more secret, her notebook, with a habitual ease. The truth of it was that she wanted to remember. No matter what, she wanted to remember  _ this _ Bellatrix and how with such earnest concern she had given her the Valerian flowers with no second thought. How she had tried to cheer Hermione up all night, and how she had been covertly snuck into the Slytherin common room. She felt between them an honest friendship growing, and silently she mourned the circumstances surrounding their bond. Hermione imagined how well this Bellatrix would fit in with Ron and Harry, how her quick wit and charm would keep both boys on their toes. And she was smart, a naturally talented witch with an aptitude for all things it seemed. She needed only apply herself. Hermione wondered for a moment what Bellatrix as an Auror would be like. Formidable, as she always had been by Voldemort’s side. 

The Gryffindor witch closed her notebook and placed it back in her bag. Slowly, and with some effort, as the ties of fatigue had made their way back into her limbs as she sat and reflected, she slid her legs under the covers and sat up in bed, looking out the iron-gilt windows that let bright shafts of moonlight fall into the room. By now her goblet of water and Valerian flowers had infused - the water now holding a greenish tinge and smelling of the same clear, fresh smell the flowers themselves gave off, only it was much stronger now. Drinking down the fragrant liquid Hermoine felt the effects almost instantly. It started as a warm trickle down her throat, followed by her hands and feet growing heavy. She replaced the cup on the table beside her bed and lay down. Her eyelids slid shut like great wooden doors and she felt her body sink lower and lower into the mattress. Herminoe’s mind began to swim with waking thoughts impossibly tangled with dreams. The voice of the other witch bubbled through her thoughts, punctuated by the signature laugh that had chilled her bones previously. In another life. There seemed to be only warmth surrounding the witch now. Bellatrix’s eyes were dark, but friendly and sympathetic. They told little of the turmoil and stress undoubtedly going on at home. There was no talk of blood purity, nor any particular regard for Muggle-born witches and wizards. She was authentically herself. Bellatrix Black, as she was, remained untouched by the poisonous darkness that would rot her from the inside out. Hermione pictured, with traumatic clarity, the eyes that had pierced through her very being in the Malfoy Manor, that had inquired with the most brutal methods. It was so different to the Bella she knew now. Next, in her lucid state, Hermoine recognised the heady smell of violets and breathed in deeply. Feeling the scent enter her body and travelling to every nerve in her body, making them hum gently with warmth and another unknown feeling. She felt her breath slow, sinking lower and lower into the mattress before she fell into a deep, undisturbed sleep where she dreamed of violets and birds made of paper. 

  
  



End file.
